


Needle in a Haystack

by Luckythirdshot



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 17:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14477946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luckythirdshot/pseuds/Luckythirdshot
Summary: Pidge would stop at nothing to find her brother and father, including stealing a ship from the garrison and scouring the universe with a rebel group. Even if it meant getting deeply involved in a ten thousand year war. Her only solace is her skilled and rebellious partner in crime, Keith, who was searching just as vigorously for his brother as she was for her family.For pidgebigbang.tumblr.com





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A huge shoutout to petrichorpearl for Betaing, and my two artists, moritomb and another-space-pidge for their incredible art! This piece took many more words than I was expecting and a lot more time than originally anticipated, but it was really fun to write!

     Pidge glared at the screen in front of her, only letting a small, frustrated sigh out. What she really wanted to do was to slam her fist down on the table and chew out whoever had decided that military computers didn’t have to be decent machines. She glanced down at the clock; There was still time, but knowing the scrapped together and often confusing defenses of the network as well as the bulky limits of the machines, she’d have to look for the information at a later date. Meanwhile, she’d work over her little pet virus to be quicker, quieter, and more efficient.

     She gathered her things silently, placing them in the padded bad she carried, then slunk out of the room. She knew the patrols by heart, and they didn’t expect anyone to actually try to get into the Garrison’s offices. After all, that resulted in permanent expulsion.

     It was a good thing she didn’t care so much any more about that.If losing a prospective school meant getting even one step closer to her father and Matt, she would chose her family every single time, no doubt about it.

     She flung herself onto her bed, only pausing to lift the ceiling panel up to stash her equipment. She wanted to immediately go to her computer and start working, but logically, she knew she needed sleep; she would function better after at least some form of actual sleep. She looked at the clock again, and groaned when she found the hour hand resting on three. She had a test the next day, and she needed to at least pretend that she was interested in her grades or they’d start expecting her to do things.

     They should have known better, she reflected. It wasn’t the dumb ones you had to watch for, it was the smart ones. They could bring you down in a heartbeat, especially if you were idiotic enough to patch together a security that a middle schooler could break through.

     She considered it again for a moment. Less “A middle schooler” and more “Pidge from middle school.” 

     While she mused, she changed into her pajamas and got into bed, soon to be completely asleep.

-

     The morning was miserable.

     Mornings were not a time made for human beings. She missed her coffee, and that was one of the things she hated the most about the garrison: that they were so damned strict on the smallest things. She already knew that their mission was to make their students miserable, but this was on a whole other level.

     She tapped her pen against her notebook. The professor was teaching them material that was laughably easy, so she didn’t even bother to pay attention. Instead, she jotted down a few more ideas and hypothesis, and doodled little things across her page. Godzilla even made a special appearance on one of the pages, and she wanted to laugh. This was how her education was going to be, then. 

     Pidge flew through her lecture classes without paying attention at all, but when it came time to train with the simulation, Pidge groaned deeply. Her team, a mouthy fighter pilot and an engineer with gastrointestinal issues, always seemed to fail spectacularly. There were many times that she didn’t even get to enact her duties as communications officer because Lance would crash the plane while trying to show off, or Hunk would be too sick to fix a part. Then Iverson would give them all an earful, which made her want to tell him exactly how idiotic he was right then and there. After all, he couldn’t even keep one person from infiltrating the institution, nor could he keep them out of his classified information. Albeit she was very determined and intelligent, and he was the typical military leader.

     It was a good thing she was able to hold her mouth, as he knew none of that. She got enough of a wicked sense of satisfaction from doing all of what she was doing without a single soul knowing.

     She felt an elbow dig into her side, and she turned to face the unfortunate soul with a killer glare. 

     “Whoa! You okay there? We’re up next, so get ready!” Lance said cheerily. Pidge took a deep breath to recompose herself, then nodded. He shrugged and turned on his heel, walking back over to stick himself to Hunk as he always did.

     Pidge steeled herself, getting ready for the impending disaster that was always the simulator. A moment later, Iverson called for Lance (notably, his eye was already twitching,) and the three of them paraded to what Pidge could only lovingly call ‘The Death Trap.’

     She efficiently slid right into her seat, already firing up systems. She wished that she could do it all, but Iverson would ring her out for touching anything involving the pilot or engineer duties, so instead, she double, then triple checked all systems, moved the radio that was far too high up for her and secured it within arm’s reach, then sat, slouched a bit in her chair as Lance was babbling about something that apparently made him seem cool. She wanted to yell at him to just get on with it, but she needed to hold her temper or she’d just have more problems in the future.

     Finally, Lance settled in and got everything working, and liftoff was relatively painless. She glanced back at Hunk, who seemed to be desperately trying to preoccupy himself with the datapad that held all of the info on the ship’s status. She didn’t bother to look for any longer, as the end of that situation was always the same at this point. 

     “I see the vessel now,” Lance called back, and Pidge was almost impressed by how serious he seemed to be. “Hail them, Pidge.”

     She picked up her com and held it close. “Lunar vessel, this is repair crew Alpha. We have visual of your vessel, do you copy?”

     She waited for a moment, staring intently at the radio, before the staticy response came. It was an unintelligible jumble, and Pidge frowned. Of course they weren’t going to make anything simple. She adjusted the frequency and compensated for interference, then grabbed the com again. “Lunar vessel, we do not copy. Again, we do not copy. Can you repeat last transmission?”

     “Repair crew Alpha, we copy. You are clear to land,” came the message, and Pidge grinned. First try and she was already having success. 

     Lance looked back at her, staring a bit. “Good job, Pidge!”

     She raised an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms. “Don’t you have a job to do now?”

     “Well, it’ll be fine. You see, you’re talking to the best fighter pilot-” He got cut off by a shudder passing through the ship and she groaned. Damn Murphy and his too-apt law.

     Both of them turned to stare at Hunk, who looked near his breaking point with all the jostling. “Hey buddy, we’ve got a problem. I think it says something is stuck.” he hit the display, which was on the fritz, but ended up just letting it be after he hit it a few good times.

     Hunk unbuckled himself and stumbled over to the main box and Pidge stared at the screen, knowing that this would be the point at which the entire mission crumbled, they all died, and would then have to face Iverson’s rage and red-faced berating. She had already resigned herself to that reality long ago.

     Hunk stumbled back as another shudder ripped through the ship and more system warning popped up, until Lance was trying to encourage Hunk to do something, the ship was falling apart, and the entire mission shook itself to pieces and they crashed to the moon’s surface, instantly dying. She couldn’t help but let out a loud, frustrated groan, and she heard Lance and Hunk’s intermingling sighs of resignation. 

     They climbed out to face snickers from various students and a furious professor. He began running through his usual insults mingled with pointing out what they did wrong, until he had worked himself into a full rant. 

     “It is mistakes like those made by these bumbling imbeciles that caused the Kerberos failure!” He yelled, pointing his finger straight at Pidge. 

      She couldn’t remember the last time she had ever been so entirely livid. There was a moment of shock where she reeled back from his words as if they were a physical blow. Then, she felt the anger bubble up inside of her, her thoughts each roaring out all the things she wished she could say.

     “You don’t even know anything about the Kerberos Mission!” She screamed back at him, much to Lance’s alarm. “Takashi Shirogane is a celebrated prodigy pilot, and there’s no way in hell that he would have made any of these mistakes, or even let anything bring his crew down! In fact-” She was cut off by Lance’s hand over her mouth as he apologized profusely and all but groveled at Iverson’s feet, making every excuse under the sun for her.

     Iverson lowered his face dangerously close to Pidge’s. “Boy, I knew that crew better than their own families. Don’t even try to tell me you ever knew any of them any better.”

     With that, Iverson stomped off towards another crew, leaving a stunned Pidge who was being led back to the observation deck by Lance. She numbly followed along, not even knowing how to react to Iverson’s statement. 

     She should have been angry, but that had burned out by now; She wanted to let it fuel her determination, but it seemed to be the opposite. The words were like bullets to glass, breaking her entirely. She meandered away to the bathroom when she felt tears rise to her eyes.

     When she had safely tucked herself away in the bathroom, she felt sobs rising up in her chest, and she already knew that she was powerless to stop them. They were going to rise up into her ribcage whether she wanted them or not. 

     The wild fear and loneliness that had previously lurked in the back of her mind rampaged, and she cried at the thought that it had been a year since her father and brother had mysteriously vanished. She had tried to send their coded messages for months afterwards, hoping beyond hope, but in the end she had to give up, knowing that it was futile. Something had happened to them.

     But she still refused to believe that they were dead. There was no way that three of the most celebrated garrison members could have died in some simple accident. Their ability to handle nearly any situation was unquestionable, and the stray files from the Garrison that she had dug up provided the perfect evidence for that.

     Nevertheless, if they were stranded or something similar, there was only so much that they could do. That was exactly why Pidge was gathering all the information, why she was fighting so hard to infiltrate, and why she was planning to go to Kerberos in order to find them. She was willing to risk her very life to help all of them.

     That didn’t help the biting ache that loneliness took on her as she was still preparing. It had only been a year, but it still felt like a lifetime, though the wounds were raw and fresh as if she had just learned all over again. She pushed it back with forced optimism, but sometimes, it was all she could do to just keep going. To not believe the Garrison when they said that the Kerberos Team had died.

     She forced herself to stop and take a deep breath. She had to go back to the observation deck and face the sound of the music. She knew that the consequences of her outburst would make her mission a lot harder, but she couldn’t change that now. Instead, she put on a stone cold expression and walked back to her team. 

     Lance shot a lot of worried glances her way, but she ignored it; instead, she pulled out a manual and started studying again, hoping that concentrating on something would drive away all of her thoughts and emotions that had overwhelmed her. The manual belonged to the model of ship that she was planning on hijacking soon, so she read it carefully and attentively, committing everything she could to memory. The rest of class was a blur, the only memorable things being those that she was being up from the manual.

     After flight sim, she skillfully blended back into the crowd to lose Hunk and Lance and followed the funnel of people into the cafeteria to be served mediocre food. She sat somewhat more towards the center of the room, knowing that Lance would look for her in the quieter corners of the room. Luckily, Pidge wasn’t bothered by the loud, obnoxious people who tended to gravitate towards the center of the room; having a sibling had taught Pidge all too well how to block out whomever she needed to. She made herself as small and compact and unnoticable as she could and buried herself in the dense book once more. 

     “You’re clever, but I’ve got sharp eyes!” a voice proclaimed in her ear, and Pidge only just kept herself from reflexively punching him in the face. She groaned and turned to face Lance, who was standing triumphantly as if he had won some competition or something. 

     “Lance, leave me alone. I know you want to get all buddy-buddy with your crew, but I don’t.” she said, a bit crossly. She watched as a hurt look crossed his features momentarily, but he plastered back on the confident facade and grinned widely again.

     “Think of it! The girls, the pizza, the arcade… I know you sneak away at night anyways, why don’t you come with us? It’ll be a party!” He boasted. Pidge snapped to full attention when he mentioned her sneaking.

     “You were always asleep. Who told you about me going out?” She hissed, grabbing his wrist and pulling him down a little. He looked mildly worried, but shook it off. 

     “I have a really big family. Faking sleep is a piece of cake when you’re as great as me. Like I just said, we go out too, so it’s not like I can even say anything.”

     She let go of his wrist, but continued to glare at him. “I go to study. Where there’s nobody else around. I will haunt your ass if you get me caught, and I have enough blackmail to end you.”

     Lance laughed good-naturedly. “I already said I wasn’t going to say a word, chill. We’re crew, we gotta watch each other’s backs.” Pidge nodded slowly, hoping that the tense exchange would drive him away with the clear end of the conversation. Instead, he took a seat beside her and thumbed the pages of the manual. “Man, these are pretty advanced models. Where’d you even get this?”

     She pointedly ignored him, making sure that it was clear that she was studying. He sat back and watched her, though she wasn’t too worried about his perception. If he truly didn’t know where she was sneaking to, it was all fun and games about a fellow student, not a hole blown in her plans.

     She stopped paying attention to the book, getting lost in thoughts about how to advance her schedule at a more rapid pace, silently ticking off tasks that she had to complete. She was startled out of her thought induced stupor when the bell rang loudly, indicating the end of dinner and the beginning of free time. Pidge closed the book with a snap and stood, only sparing Lance a glance before losing herself in the crowd again, back to her room.


	2. Chapter 2

     When the bell tolled for lights out, Pidge was fully equipped with everything she needed in order to infiltrate Iverson’s office and computer, all of her code now tweaked for much better performance- again. She checked and double checked her equipment, stashed it under the desk, and waited for one of the officers to come to her door and ensure that she was in her room. The CO who was in charge of her hall was as punctual as ever, and she stood to attention silently as he marked her down as present. It only took a moment before he resumed going door to door down the hall as his duties required. 

     She watched the clock impatiently as the second hands crept on by, torturously slow. She couldn’t leave too early or she would be caught, but if she left too late, she’d run straight into Iverson, who made a point to patrol the halls to discourage any misbehavior. She slung her small bag crossways and made sure to secure it so that it wouldn’t make any noise, then waited once more.

     When the second hand finally landed where it needed to be, Pidge took her handheld jammer and held it up to the door, making it pop unlocked and refusing to let it send an alert to the grumpy old hall director. It slid open silently, well oiled and maintained by Pidge herself, and she crept down the halls, avoiding all of the patrol’s routes. She had been doing this routinely, every day, for a month now, so the routes were embedded in her mind. She finally crept her way into the blissfully quiet and abandoned office that belonged to Iverson and booted up the shitty old computer, resisting the urge to tap her fingers or toes out of impatience. The first night she had been there, she had evaluated and re-evaluated the best options for hiding in the event that someone got suspicious. Iverson may have fancied himself a minimalist, but there were plenty of places for her to remain out of view, for which she was eternally glad. A month in and she had never had to use her hiding spots, which was a relief to her. Nobody here was smart enough to know that she was tampering with the computers, and she was too smart to leave any more of a trail than what was necessary. 

     It took a much shorter period of time for her program to collect everything she needed for the night, ahead of schedule. She carefully extracted all of her software, unplugged the drive, and snuck back out. She was lucky tonight; she would get way more sleep than last night. 

     She crept around a corner and came face to face with a pair of very dark, impossibly purple eyes. It took her a moment to process, but she scrambled back, noting that the dark eyed person did the exact same. They must have known the patrol routes too, dammit. She gathered herself as quickly as she could and assumed a defensive posture, ready to fight whoever it was. He looked her up and down, narrowed his eyes, and stood still for a moment. 

     “You’re trespassing too,” a voice hissed from behind the bandana tied around their nose and mouth. Everything about this person confused her; He wore alarm red, which was possibly the most noticeable color one could wear besides something neon. She nodded affirmation to him.

     He lowered the bandana and put his hands up to show her that he wasn’t armed and had no intent on hurting her. She relaxed a bit, though she still remained tense.

     “I’m not going to hurt anyone. I’m just looking for information,” He whispered. 

     “What kind of info are you looking for, exactly?” She asked suspiciously. 

     “Info on the Kerberos mission. Like I said, it isn’t going to hurt anyone.”

     She stared at him, then shook her head. “And why the hell would someone like you want info on the Kerberos mission? That was supposedly an open and shut case,” She said, pretending to be ignorant about it. If he knew she knew of anything, she ran a possibility of being hurt by the mystery person.

     She saw his eyes light up and his brows drawn down, clearly enraged, and re-thought her actions. He began to whisper to her angrily. “There’s no way in hell a routine science mission would have been so badly interrupted that Shiro would have not been able to handle it. He was too fucking good for that, and I refuse to believe that he’s dead. That’s Garrison cover up bullshit. Shiro’s still out there and I’m going to find him, come hell or high water.”

     Pidge leaned forward a bit, suddenly more intrigued than tense. “You knew Takashi Shirogane?” 

     Keith looked a little sheepish, realizing that he had spilled so much information, but nodded anyways. “He was basically my older brother. The only family I have left.”

     Pidge glanced around, suddenly remembering the patrols. “Come back to my room, we can talk this out. I might be able to get you what you need. Just don’t get me caught,” She said, stalking her way back to her original path. 

     “As if,” Keith huffed, but silently followed her anyways. Within minutes, they were back in Pidge’s room, and she took her drive out of her pocket and held it up. “My brother and my father were on the Kerberos Mission. Shiro was basically family to us, since he spent so much time with Dad and Matt.”

     “...Oh,” Keith muttered. “You know that it was bullshit too. All along, they’ve been lying to us,” He said, anger rising in his voice again. She saw his fists ball up, and waited for him to calm himself down.

     “I’ve known for a while. I play at being a student here, but my real intent here is to be able to go after my dad and brother. I’ve been infiltrating Iverson’s office for a month now and collecting everything I need.”

     Keith looked up at her, clearly shocked. “How? Iverson is pretty impeccable.”

     “Not really. He’s an idiot. A typical military type with the bark of a high command officer and no real bite to speak of. He’s not smart enough to actually be able to do any damage. He did catch me once, which is why I snuck in here as a student.”

     “I guess I should expect that from a Holt,” He said, impressed. Pidge laughed.

     “So, hacker, what have you uncovered?”

     “Well, official reports are kinda… all over the place. The first thing I did was retrieved and study those. Overall, they have no idea what happened with the Kerberos Mission. The link went dead with no warning, and they still haven’t been able to reach Kerberos to investigate. The most important part is that their scans show absolutely no sign of wreckage of any sort. With wreckage, there would be debris, but there isn’t any. However, there are really weird signs of damage on Kerberos itself. As if some sort of high energy cannon blasted it. As far as the reports go…. Well, it wasn’t one of ours,” she said solemnly.

     “Alright, hold on. You’re implying… That Shiro and the Holts got abducted by aliens. Like all those shitty B movies.”

     Pidge shrugged. “This universe is far too vast for us to be the only life forms. It’s not impossible, and from the evidence we have here, really not improbable either. We just don’t have anything even close to the tech that would cause so much damage.So best case scenario, this is some sort of miscommunication and there are aliens trying to figure out what the hell a human is. Worst case…”

     “Worst case, they want us dead,” Keith said, finishing the sentence for her, with a horrified look on his face. He hung his head. “Fuck.”

     “Yeah. Outcomes are not looking great here. But here’s the thing: We can’t ignore this. Either we peacefully resolve some dumb misunderstanding where they think we’re cute pets, or we’re going to be fighting an intergalactic war for the very existence of our planet. Which sounds great and all in scifi novels, but let’s be real here, they’re way more advanced than us.”

     Keith slumped down and put his chin in his hand, thinking. “So… where do we go from here?” he asked, seeming a little lost.

     “Well, I have one goal for right now, and that’s to find my family. From there, I’ll figure it out.” She stated, matter-of-factly. She had thought about that same problem many times, but it just proved to strengthen her resolve for her mission.

     Keith nodded. “Find Shiro then figure out the intergalactic food chain. Fair enough.”

     They sat in silence for a moment before Keith awkwardly looked up at her. “So… how are you planning on getting to Kerberos?”

     Pidge grinned back at him deviously. “With the best ship from the Garrison.”

     “Would you mind another person?”

     She hesitated. She didn’t know Keith very well, but he was clearly in the same boat as she was, and she couldn’t find the heart to even begin to rationalize why this was a bad idea.

     “I come with perks, if that helps. I’ve been stockpiling foods that are safe for food travel, I fight well, and I was one of the best pilots in this entire fucking school besides Shiro.”

     Pidge nodded slowly, and Keith reached his hand out for a handshake. She took it and they shook solemnly, united in their goals to rescue the Kerberos crew.

-

     It was go time.

     Pidge couldn’t deny that she was nervous. The idea was to open the hangar as quietly as could possibly be. Keith was providing a distraction, but would join her with the supplies, and they would begin what could only be described as the craziest mission ever invented.

     She didn’t expect that it would be hard to leave the Garrison, but she had been getting along with her team more than she had ever expected… And, of course, she was leaving behind her entire planet. Saying goodbye to the Earth was something she didn’t think she’d have to face so soon, but she was faced with it now. After considering it for some time, she left a short note for the boys, telling Lance and Hunk that she had enjoyed her time with them, but she had to go. It was ambiguous and non-concrete, something they would understand after the news broke. 

     She gathered herself together and slung the small knapsack over her shoulder. It held the bare minimum: Self care products, clothes, some lightweight tech gear, and a picture of her and Matt in front of the ship that had vanished, taking the crew along with it. Go time.

     She slunk through the halls as she always did, refusing to let the nostalgia overtake her. She stepped into Iverson’s office and awaited her signal.

     One flash from her phone, and she knew that Keith had the Garrison’s attention. She heard the alarms start to go off, and she set to work disabling the hangar lockdown and opening the doors. It was childsplay to do so, and before five minutes were up, she began to sprint down the halls, mingling with the crowds of people shoving their ways down the halls. Ten minutes total, she found her exit and slipped off of the route that the others were taking, following the service halls down to the hangar. 

     She kicked open the hatch and saw that the pilots who were investigating the distraction had already been deployed and the hangar was silent. She heard a bit of crunching, the telltale sound of a truck pulling into the hangar. She knew that it was Keith, but the stayed out of sight until she was sure.

     Keith whistled loudly into the hangar and Pidge hopped down from her vantage point and began loading supplies with Keith. She thanked her lucky stars that recent tech had come so far in making these things efficient, as they had finished in no time flat. She climbed into the ship they were taking and heard Keith clamber in behind her. He automatically assumed the Pilot’s seat, and she sat beside him, assuming the role of co-pilot. Pidge hadn’t piloted or even co-piloted before, but she had studied the manual more than she had ever studied anything in her life, so she was confident in her abilities to help Keith should her assistance be required.

     She took a deep breath, steeled herself for what was to come, and readied herself with her laptop. She opened video footage that she had wormed her way into hours ago and saw that Keith had planted several distractions, some of which were still going on. Because the Garrison had so many procedural rules and regulations, they’d be tied up with that for at least the rest of the night, if not longer. After all, Keith had planted explosives, and had done it cleverly at that. They were random and erratic, but planned well enough that the times were staggered and often unexpected. None of the explosions would cause any injury or were too close to any settlement.

     She glanced at Keith, raising her eyebrow a bit. She hadn’t expected him to be so clever; from what she had seen of him, he was blunt and straightforward in his actions. Now, she saw that he was absolutely capable of being formidable and intelligent. She took a moment to grin over the fact that basically nobody in the universe would be able to stop them at this point if they worked together to take something down.

     She felt the engine roar to life all around her, and she took a long, deep breath. This was how she was going to get to space. To experience the universe and become what could only be described as a space rebel. It really was the stuff of sci-fi novels, she thought.

     She clicked the button and the roof of the hangar slowly retracted, careful to double check that nobody would be alerted of it. Then, they began to take flight.

     They flew through the air, and within minutes, they were exiting the atmosphere, and Pidge looked down to see the Earth, so peaceful and quiet and beautiful, becoming smaller and smaller below them. It brought tears to her eyes, but it also brought excitement to her heart.

-

     On their third day in space, Pidge threw herself in front of Keith with their feed in her hands. She wasn’t going to let him escape her questions any longer, so she sat directly in front of him, cutting off his exit to the door.

     Keith obviously knew that, as she saw his eyes narrow, and he began to fidget a bit. 

     “Seeing as we’re going to go on a long-term journey through space to find our missing relatives, I think it’s past time we actually got to know one another.”

     Keith sat still and focused entirely on her. This was going to be a fun discussion. 

     “I’m not interested in playing get to know you games that make you hate everyone in the room on the first day of class. Got anything interesting that you think encapsulates….” She waved in his general direction, “This?”

     Keith sighed exasperatedly, but she still counted this as a win. He wasn’t running away, at least.

     “I like my motorcycle and Shiro. I got thrown out of the Garrison a little less than a year ago.”

     Pidge raised her eyebrow in response, but all he did was shrug and start shoveling food into his mouth.

     “There’s gotta be more, dude. I want to know who I’m going to be spending all my time with in a tiny, cramped vessel as we sherlock some shit out and figure out what’s really going on!”

     Keith polished off his food quickly, then stood up. “I’m pretty boring. Sorry.” He pulled his knife out and started throwing it up and down, catching it deftly and perfectly every time. He then proceeded to walk out of the room, still flipping the knife, and disappeared.

     “Alright, great, good talk,” She grumbled. “Not like I need to know anything, right? I live with a fuckin’ space cryptid. This is fine.”

     She stabbed a piece of what she hoped was a vegetable and glared holes at it. 

-

     They had been in space a week, and Pidge had to confess that she was bored. She was itching to get to the information she needed to track her brother and father, but she was at a bit of a stalemate on that end. Instead, she kept her eyes on the news from Earth.

     The day they stole the Garrison’s ship, the news was buzzing. Pidge knew that they wouldn’t admit to a student stealing a ship, however; they were saying that it had been destroyed. To her great amusement, she saw that the Garrison had found her hints and were suspicious of Iverson himself being part of- if not the causing factor- of the incident. She snickered when she saw that one. Before she had left, she put recordings of Iverson’s hissy fits in the Garrison’s database. Though she knew that the instructors being rough was part of being a group of the military, Iverson took it to an extreme, often terrorizing students. After he had blown up on Pidge and told her in no uncertain terms that the Kerberos crew was dead, she knew that she would have to strike back. 

     There were sparse articles relating to their situation a week in, and those that were still talking about it were talking about the safety and security of military equipment or the competency of all of the Garrison professors. Other than that, it was radio silence. 

     Keith trod in, chewing on some snack bar and lazily staring at parts of the ship. He stopped at the navigation system, glared at it for a while, then wandered back out.

     Pidge shut down the signal to the satellite that had enabled her to look at the news and started looking for radio broadcasts again. 

-

     It had been a week, and Pidge and Keith had decided to drift further from Earth, seeing nothing of great interest and knowing that it was a risk to stay too close to the stomping grounds of the Garrison.

     Over the course of the week, Pidge discovered that space travel was incredibly  _ boring _ . She had done the calculations as far as she could have, input trajectories, scanned everything a million times, and found herself with far too little to do. She was restless and unhappy, occasionally bugging Keith, trying to unravel the enigmatic person she was on a space vessel with, but he was stubborn and seemed to insist upon being mysterious.

     Or, more specifically, he’d just shrug and leave to go to the part of the ship he dubbed as his. As he had just done. She knew better than to try to follow him, knowing without having to face his anger that the situation would be disastrous.

     Pidge trudged back up to the front of the ship, grumbling something about mullets and MCR. When she entered the room, she heard her computer’s fans noisily trying to cool of her device, and she knew without even having to see the screen that she had found something. She immediately raced over to where her equipment was stationed, not even bothering to sit down. 

     Surely enough, there were strange anomalies passing through her scanners. Just to be sure, she pulled up the recent history, and she narrowed her eyes.

     It couldn’t just be an anomaly. It was too consistent for an anomaly. The only other thing…

     It was getting closer, she realized with a start. Whatever signal the scanner was picking up, it kept getting stronger and stronger. It seemed to be slow enough that it was fully aware that they were there, careful to not collide.

     She picked up the ship’s intercom. “Keith, something’s coming, get your ass down here!” She said loudly. The possibilities bouncing around in her head ranged from ‘We have new allies!” to “Shit, This is the day we die.” She refused to acknowledge the latter, as she firmly believed that there was always some way to foil the worst possibility and make it slightly less worse.

     The signal was slowing, and Pidge knew that it could only mean one thing- that they were close enough to not want to crash, thus coming even with them. She knew she couldn’t trust her eyes or their cameras, as she had already looked out and saw nothing.

     Keith skidded into the room moments later, gripping a purple knife so hard that his knuckles were white. She quickly beckoned him over to stand by the comms.

     A very tense and drawn out five minutes ensued, a period of time that punctuated only by the quiet ticks on Pidge’s computer.

     A transmission channel hailed them, and seeing no other option, Pidge opened it. It was garbled and mysterious for a moment, but the sound stopped as quickly as it had begun. She eyed it, knowing that the chanel was still live.

     “Are you a friend of the Galra Empire?” a voice boomed, making both Pidge and Keith jump. They looked at each other, both baffled.

     “We’ve never heard of the Galra Empire,” Pidge said cautiously. They had to remain neutral in case it was the so called Galra Empire, or if they had run into something completely different.

     She heard a voice in the background, but it was impossible to decipher. 

     So there really were aliens. Huh.

     Pidge snapped back to attention as she heard the alien speak again. “We’ve been observing your planet. You are rather… primitive, and rather reclusive. We deemed your species to be non-threatening. Yet your behaviour is not usual. Why?”

     It was a rather direct question, something easy to answer. “I’m pretty sure something took my brother and father. I’m going to find them.”

     Keith glanced carefully at Pidge, and she nodded. There was no way of knowing what exactly to do here, as they were walking into this situation blind. Better to follow the truth and work with the little bits of info they got from the aliens.

     “The Resistance does not imprison or kidnap the innocent, human. The Galra have conquered the universe over the past 10,000 years, and only grow more cruel.”

     “I…” Pidge stopped a moment to think. She didn’t quite know what to say yet. This could be the biased party, trying to turn them against a strong ally, but 10,000 years of conquering was a hard thing to make a hyperbole out of. Their chances of being found again within humanity’s grasp was so slim that she decided that it would be better to trust these people for now and go snooping around for information later. “Alright, I think my buddy Keith and I may join you, if you agree to this sudden… change.” 

     “The Resistance could always use more people. We will have to make sure that you are not allied with the Galra, but knowing your species, there’s no real chance of that. We need to enter your ship.”

     Pidge hesitated and saw Keith’s hand on the unsheathed knife. She pursed her lips and shook her head. She didn’t know how good Keith was with that thing, but challenging an unknown amount of aliens with two people and one weapon was a sure way to end up dead. He looked at her for a few moments, his deep purple eyes betraying his worry and the adrenaline. It took a moment, but he finally stepped down and resheathed his knife. He kept his hand in his pocket, however, inches away from the knife. 

     “I want to know why I can trust you,” Pideg said, testing the waters. “I have a feeling you wouldn’t let strangers onto your ship, so why do you expect us to?”

     There was a moment of silence over the chanel once again. “Your caution is something we can appreciate, human. We’ve learned, though, that in order to gain something, we have to risk something.”

     She knew all about that. She had given up everything to find her father and Matt, even though she knew the possibilities and probabilities. She knew that it was mathematically unlikely for her to find them, but she couldn’t bow to those numbers. Not when her family was missing.

     “I understand,” Pidge said sternly. “You have my permission.”

     They successfully docked, more thanks to the alien ship than to theirs, and both Keith and Pidge stood in front of the airlock, both curious and both worried. This was the moment they either died or found allies.

     The airlock seemed to open agonizingly slow, though Pidge knew it was moving at its normal pace. She closed her eyes and took a breath before opening them back up again, meeting the alien’s gaze as it stood before her. It was tall, taller than Keith by a few feet. Its skin was green and brown and looked rough, and its eyes glowed yellow. It seemed more intimidating than Pidge liked, and she fought the urge to step back a few steps. 

     “Your ship is outdated, and it’s almost a wonder it’s still operating,” sait a smaller green creature about a foot taller than Pidge. She glared at it. “This is one of the best ships that humans have on hand,” she commented, trying to bite back her aggravation. She had chosen this vessel specifically for its speed and control. The green alien shrugged. “I suppose if you want to go the speed of a Volorian slug, it’s okay.”

     The tallest put their hand out to discourage further discussion. “We did not come to insult your ship, we came to make sure that there is no trace of the galra in its databases. Beela, go,” they said, tilting their head down to the green one. She strode forward and plugged something into the console. Pidge didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She saw Keith tense up as the alien passed him and took a deep breath, prompting him to do so too. He did, but she also noticed his back foot slide back a few inches, a familiar movement. He was putting himself in a more defensive stance, as their martial arts teachers had taught them at the Garrison. She almost wanted to do it too, but she didn’t want to draw attention to it so she remained still.

     She heard a click, and saw the alien walk past them again. “All clean, boss, No transmission, even with their planet. Someone was looking at the signals from the topside, but nothing that relates to the Galra or even to anyone other than more humans.”

     The tall alien breathed a sigh of relief. “Great.” He turned back to them. “Still willing to join the Resistance? I’m not going to lie to you, this is almost certainly going to get you killed. We’re talking about a 10,000 year old empire of bloodthirsty people.”

     “I’m not going to find my family by sitting around and listening to Earth news, am I? Besides, if I’m smart enough and quick enough, I’ll survive this.”

     The tallest alien grinned. “Feisty. Determination is good in a soldier, and I can already tell that you’d be good against some big hulking enemy. It’s good to have to aboard, human.”

     “Pidge,” She said, holding out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Pidge. I’m Buil.” The alien shook it before she realized that their social customs probably didn’t line up and that she’d have to start worrying about that now. Keith, who was still standing beside her, nodded.

     “We’ll have our cargo ships tow your ship into our care in case you need it later, but for now, it’s the best to get into this ship,” they said. She hesitated, knowing that once they had taken her ship from her, they would take her freedom to move around freely- or, much less dramatically, they’d taken her easy way around out of the equation. But there was no real option to this. She was going to have to give it up.

     “I want to know that my ship is still going to accessible,” She said, crossing her arms. The alien nodded. “I’ll give you the key code to the bay once it’s there and you can see for yourself. Until then, you hate to trust us. You don’t have any reason not to yet.”

     She regarded them warily. “I don’t exactly have a reason to trust you yet, either.”

     “Smart. I’ll let your buddy keep his weapon on him, if that makes you feel any better. If you’re going to join us, you’re going to have to take the plunge.”

     Keith raised an eyebrow at them, as if he were challenging them to actually take his knife away from them, but the alien just grinned at him and held their hands up a bit, as if to show Keith that they were no real threat.

     Pidge sighed. She knew that this was the likely scenario, but she had held out hope that they could offer something more concrete. She held her hand out to the captain and they shook it again.

     Twenty minutes later, they were comfortably seated in the alien vessel, all of their cargo stored away safely and the few possessions they took from Earth with them. It was almost sad, she thought, that the essentials of her life were sitting in a deflated tattered old bag. Keith had less- just his jacket and the knife. She had only gotten to know a little about her travelling companion, and what little she had learned was all aboard their vessel. She’d commented days ago about his lack of possessions and he had just shrugged. “Never really had much,” he said, then meandered away.

     Pidge nearly jumped in excitement when she heard the captain open a transmission, immediately curious. This wasn’t exactly a leisurely study trip, but she couldn’t help but feel like she should know everything she could about these aliens. 

     “Princess, we’re ready to wormhole back to base,” Buil said immediately.

     “Did you find anything?” A very prim voice asked. 

     “We could some humans who want to join. Earth is a neutral territory, though, and none of them are aware of anything other than the immediate few planets close to them. Nothing that they have could really do much against the Galra.”

     Pidge could tell that the silence over the line was the sound of disappointment. “Alright, Buil. Wormholing now.” The line was dropped, and Pidge gaped at the clear view of some sort of gate opening up from the vast nothingness. Buil requested a wormhole, and Pidge could only guess that this was what he was asking for.

     Aliens already held a mastery for manipulating space and time. She had thought about it, sure, but it was always hypothetical, almost fantastical, something she had never dreamed she would see. 

     She paced up to the bow and watched as they continued forward, right into the glowing blue of the wormhole.

     Seconds later, she was looking at a foreign scene. The stars were completely different, the few faraway planets she could see were in completely different places, and stationed in front of them was a massive white and blue ship. Its design was elegant and beautiful, with flowing lines and minimal corners, which Pidge could only attribute to aerodynamicity. It was truly a marvel of technology, far greater than anything she had ever encountered. Her worries were shoved to the back of her mind as her wonder and curiosity got the best of her.

     “Docking now, princess,” Buil said. Some notification popped up on the screen, and Buil started descending to the lower levels of the ship as Pidge saw a metal plate, seamless from the rest of the design, recede and leave a sizable opening. Buil skilfully maneuvered the ship in and landed.

     The aliens turned to her. “You’re going to meet the leader of the rebellion. Usually, only those who have risen high enough in the ranks get to speak with her, but luckily for you, we’ve been called to meet with some leaders of head resistance planets in order to orchestrate an attack. Since you’re already here, and the Princess heard your story, she wants to meet with you. It’s rare for humans to be taken by the Galra; they haven’t gotten that far in the universe unless there’s some sort of secret force that we don’t know about.”

     Pidge nodded. They were lucky to be so close; She needed more information if she was going to find her family. She also wanted to know more about this war; there was still a fifty-fifty chance that they were on the wrong side. It did put her mind at ease a little knowing that they weren’t being treated wrong in any way at this point, nor had Earth been threatened in any way. She wanted to make sure, though. 

     A guide, who was an alien that looked physically impossible with a long pole-like body and tiny, almost reptilian arms led them through a set of corridors. After a while, another alien, this time more teal in complexion but more humanoid, led them down another set of corridors. Pidge wondered absentmindedly if they would ever see Buil and their crew again. She glanced back and found Keith to be as sullen as he always was, though she could also see him looking carefully at his surroundings, as he were committing them to memory. Even if they were attacked, though, there was little they could do. 

     She slowed down minutely and Keith took the hint, striding closer to her. 

     “If they really wanted us dead, they’d have killed us already. This leans more in our favor, so I’m inclined to believe that they’re good.” She whispered into his ear.

     “I’m still going to look for ways out. This could flip at any moment,” He said cautiously. Pidge nodded. “I trust your judgement.” He nodded at her, and they continued down the hallway next to each other.

     Pidge found herself easily lost in the labyrinth of of the ship. There were halls that led to darkness, doors of varying size and seeming importance, and windows that let her glance out into space. It really was a breathtaking sight.

     While Pidge was distracted, Keith grabbed her arm. She stopped immediately, assessing the situation. Keith pointed at the door in front of them, and Pidge relaxed a little. The tall, impossible alien proclaimed, “Bi-boh-bi!” and gestured into the room. They stepped in and Pidge peered through the sim light to see a tall, humanoid person standing in the middle of a holographic star chart. This room appeared to be the helm or bridge of the ship, where all the commands were made. 

     The person on the small platform shifted and caught sight of them. She waved her hand over the hologram and it dissipated like steam, scattering, as the lights became a little brighter. 

     “I am Princess Allura of Altea, the current general of the Revolution. It is a great pleasure to meet you,” she said, holding out her hand. Pidge shook it, and Allura smiled at her. “I’m Pidge, and this is Keith. We’re looking for our family.”

     “So I’ve been told,” Allura replied. “The Galra do not hesitate to take what they want. It is odd to me, however, that such a secluded neutral territory has been targeted.”

     Pidge shrugged, trying to wave off her defensiveness. “They were on a mission to the moon Kerberos, at the edge of our system. Their goal was to extract ice samples and possibly study the history of the planet, but they never came back.” She folded her arms and hugged them closer to her. Allura bowed her head, gracious in her empathy. 

     “We will do everything possible to help you find them, Pidge. We have a suspicion that the Galra have planned to expand their territory, including the sector that Earth is in. I know that you cannot speak for your people, as only a few of your species have come into contact with other species, but we are hoping that you would join the resistance.”

     “All respects, Princess, but I really don’t know. Buil said that our tech couldn’t really do much against whoever you’re up against- the Galra Empire? We don’t know anything about this war or about you. It’s a lot to take in.”

     Keith stepped forward, his brow furrowed. “Humanity fights for its survival. If you threaten us, we will find a way to win and keep surviving.”

     Allura nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. The Galra are the real threat here, and they would be more than happy to imprison your people. We’re the force that is trying to fight that by all means possible. The Galra destroyed my planet and its people, and I am not willing to ever let that happen again,” She said, her voice firm with resolve. There was an anger that Pidge saw burning in her eyes, and she knew that Allura had to be telling the truth. The way she had tensed up, her fists at her side, and her head-on gaze were clear enough; This was a woman willing to fight to the death for anything she chose to defend, and in the end, she’d be the one left standing.

     “Princess, I don’t want to waste any time. I appreciate what you’ve done for us, but the sooner I find my family, the better.”

     “Of course,” She said. “I need to know what type of work you can do for us,” she said, pulling up some sort of menu hologram. As far as Pidge could tell, it was some sort of roster.

     “I can fight,” Keith said. “I was also one of the best fighter pilots in our academy.” Allura nodded. “I’ll direct you towards the strike teams, then. And you?”

     “I can do whatever you need me to with tech. Mostly software, but I can deal with hardware too. I pick things up quickly, so figuring out alien tech shouldn’t be too hard.” 

     “Perfect, we’re a bit short. The Olkari would love to have you, I think,” she said, rearranging things on her lists.

     Allura finished what she was doing and the holograms vanished again, leaving them all standing in the room.

     “I wish you the best of luck, fighters,” She said. “If you need me, I will be here.”

     “Thank you,” Keith said at the same time as Pidge was saying, “Thank you, Princess Allura.”

     They exited and found themselves faced with two more people. One Pidge recognized as Buil, who was gesturing Keith forward. The other was tall and green and had huge eyes, and Pidge could only assume that this was the Olkari that Allura had spoken of. She introduced herself as Ryner.

     “Are you ready?” She inquired, and Pidge nodded tersely. She and Keith exchanged a quick hug- Damn, when did she actually get to be friendly enough to exchange a hug?- but he reciprocated. Then, they both tensely departed for whatever the resistance needed them for.


	3. Chapter 3

     Pidge didn’t imagine that this would be so easy. She could command an entire tank by just thinking commands in binary! She had spent two hours talking with Ryner about the tech and how it worked, though she didn’t think either of them minded if her smile was anything to judge by. While she was on break, she wondered if Keith was finding as much success as she was. Knowing Keith, he probably was either wowing them with his piloting skills or had put someone’s eye out. 

     Pidge spent the rest of the day with a diverse group of aliens, watching them code some sort of purple glowing tech to be friendly. She was given a notebook to write down whatever she deemed necessary with the promise of more paper if she needed it, which she automatically knew she would need. There was an entire different set of rules to coding alien tech, which she had suspected, but surprisingly, it seemed relatively similar to the human way of coding. The content was the biggest difference, and Pidge was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet as she saw each of the aliens approach their task in different ways. She asked a myriad of questions, almost rapid fire, but each of the aliens were happy to answer, and Pidge marveled. Everything she was experiencing was wholly due to the incredible advancements in technology that each species had made, and when they started working together, she doubted they could even be stopped. She wondered how their active translators worked, and she got a few answers for the different types (Mostly relying on complex AI and database communications, as well as incredible satellite communications that gathered data passively.)

     At the end of her first bizarre but incredible day, Pidge just wanted to keep working. The Olkari insisted that she rest, but she had been resting on their vessel; she wanted to act now and not stop until her body absolutely forced her to. She was so incredibly behind in her goals and fascinated by the new tech that it felt like doing anything else was an utter waste of time. The Olkari, however, insisted, and Pidge didn’t want to try to fight one of her first opportunities.

     Ryner walked her to a room down a maze of halls, and she saw a second door propped open right next door.

     “Ah, it appears that your compatriot is late to arrive. I shall leave you here to your room to get settled,” she said gracefully, and Pidge thanked her. She glanced into Keith’s room curiously, and upon seeing it completely barren, started inspecting her own. It was almost remarkable just how similar it was to the Garrison barracks, but there was a softer, more rounded build to all of the architecture, and the walls were white with pale blue glowing strips showing through. Sitting neatly at the end of her bed was her bag, and when she looked under her bed, she saw some of the boxes of equipment and rations that they had still had left. It looked to be all in order, and she figured that the only thing to really do now was unpack. She left her door open as an invitation to Keith, whenever he came back. Keith appeared a short time later, and predictably stuck his head into Pidge’s room first. He disappeared for a moment, presumably into his own room, but came back momentarily. 

     “Not going to unpack?” She questioned, not bothering to look up at him while she was trying to situate her equipment. 

     “Not really anything to unpack,” He replied as she heard him sit on her bed. He watched her set up the most important equipment piece by piece. She doubted any of it would work this far from the Earth (wherever they were, she thought disbelievingly) but she did it anyways. She found what she could only assume was a power outlet, made a crude adapter rather quickly, and plugged it in. It lit up immediately, and it felt comforting; this she knew. This she had control over. It didn’t bother her that it couldn’t catch any signals- it was far too primitive for that, she knew after having seen the rebel tech- but she did sigh.

     The days of broadcasting the Holt family signal out into space hopefully were gone. A part of her ached to do it, and she knew that at some point, she would definitely try to broadcast it with the rebel tech, but for now, she had been all but locked out of the lab in order to sleep. 

     Keith watched her solemnly, seeming to not really know what to do with himself besides keep Pidge company. Every now and again, he would unsheath his knife and run his fingers absentmindedly over the impossibly smooth metal, and he would seem a million miles away. She didn’t mind. She kept unpacking the immediately important things, finding a safe, somewhat neat spot for everything. 

     When she had unpacked everything that needed unpacking from the boxes, she turned to her bag. It had her smaller, more important tech that could stay, the book that she carried anywhere she needed to go, and a picture of her and Matt in front of the vessel that was supposed to take Shiro, Matt, and Sam up to Kerberos, but never bought them back down. Pidge imagined that Keith had something very similar to what she had too, but he wasn’t paying enough attention to even register that she had the photo.

     Once she had unpacked sufficiently enough, she threw herself onto the bed and lounged on it, up against the wall, facing Keith. He had snapped back to attention when she had jumped on the bed with a small, startled yelp, but had leveled his gaze on her.

     “Alright, space rebel, I know nothing about you. Care to share a story or two while we wait for dinner like the nice Aliens told us to?”

     “I don’t have a lot of good stories,” He said. 

     “Come on, dude, I know you were living in a shack in the middle of the desert, I know that you used to attend the Garrison, and I know that you know one of the best pilots to ever be admitted to that school. You’ve got to have something,” She retorted. 

     “I mean…. The most interesting thing would be my fight with Iverson,” He said contemplatively, but let his sentence trail on. She nearly jumped up in surprise. “You fought Iverson?” She said loudly.

     “Yeah. You’re not actually surprised, are you?”

     “Uh, dude, you fought one of the highest ranking staff members of the Garrison. Duh, I’m surprised!”

     “Oh. Well, uh,” Keith said thinking for a moment. “It was right after news broke and I just started going back to classes. For some reason, I got it in my head to try to purposefully recreate scenarios that even the best pilots couldn’t escape from on a peaceful moon, right? There’s nothing to shoot you down on a moon, and the landings and such were already calculated and locked in place. So I tried using the simulator during class to see if I was just in disbelief. I couldn’t come up with a single idea on what would happen that would cause them to lose contact so immediately. By that time, my grades were plummeting, and Iverson tried to tell me not to end up like Shiro. I didn’t even think about it, I launched myself at him and in the end, I messed up his face pretty badly. I was kicked out, and that’s why Iverson’s face is still fucked up to this day.”

     Pidge stared at him, mouth wide in disbelief.  “No way. You’re bluffing.”

     Keith stared at her, deadpan. “You could probably ask him when we get back, but I don’t think he’ll be happy to tell you. I bet there’s an accident report somewhere, I’m sure you could sniff that out.”

     “You’re actually serious,” She said with a laugh. “You’re basically a legend, then. Everyone takes bets about how Iverson lost that eye. Lance put money down that it was some sort of alien invasion.”

     At that, Keith grinned. “I think I need to take the jackpot then. The Garrison only let a few people know. Shiro, and through Shiro, Matt. Iverson and a few of the people high enough in Rank to matter. That’s about it.”

     “So we save our families, go back home, and claim a jackpot. Sounds like an action movie,” she said thoughtfully. She wished wistfully that it worked that way, but she doubted that they were that lucky. They had just found themselves in the middle of a 10,000 year war with more alien species than she could have ever imagined. 

     They both fell silent, and Pidge fidgeted with the wires of her equipment, unsure of what to do next. She didn’t necessarily think it was wise to slow down and analyze everything that had happened, knowing that she would start feeling as if it just couldn’t be real. If she just kept plowing forward, she could work with this. She could get the rebels to help her find her family, and they could go back home and start the rest of their lives. 

     She heard a chime sound, and hopped up. Keith followed her lead. She assumed that the chime was for dinner, and she pulled up the map of the castle the Olkari had given her. Keith, content to just follow and not entirely sure of the directions, followed behind her, seemingly more interested in observing the hallway. Surprisingly, it only took five minutes to reach the crowded dining hall, despite the maze-like construction of the map. Rebels from all different species crowded the large ballroom turned dining room, and Pidge eyed the room, immediately questioning whether or not it was really worth getting food if she had to struggle through so many people to get it. But they had to save their rations in case of an emergency, and the room was so busy that she doubted anyone would even be able to keep their attention on any one thing at the moment anyways. Keith looked skeptical, and she couldn’t blame him. She pinched at his jacket and basically hauled him along, searching for the end of the line to get some of whatever food there was here. After a bit of searching, she finally found it.

     Dinner was quick after that. She discovered that their food was entirely synthesized goo, something she had read in scifi novels but never fully imagined being an actual idea. It tasted odd, but she shrugged and ate it anyways. She’d get used to it eventually. Keith was still poking at it with a spoon, an expression dawning on horrified as it jiggled. She kicked his calf, and when he whirled around to her with an annoyed tension in his shoulders, she shrugged. “Eat it. It won’t kill you,” She said. He looked dubious, but took a bite anyways. He stared down at it for the rest of the time it took him to eat it as if it were some hyper complex problem that he thought he could solve.

     After dinner, they went back to their rooms and decided that they deserved a long night's rest.

-

     Working with the rebels became an almost easy pattern, if you looked past battling vicious bipedal evil purple space cats. Pidge would get up and be forced by the Olkari to sit down and eat before rushing back to the labs to work on whatever else she could stick her nose into. Her favorite to study was increasingly becoming the Galra decryption that the Olkari were still working with. There were worlds of possibilities that she could see just from studying it in the moment, and she was curious as to what breakthroughs she could make in their system given time to actually sit down and study it for a while. But as sorely as the rebels needed software techs, they also needed fighters. Pidge had discovered an aptitude for short battles, and a skill for quick data retrieval. It was terrifying, yes. But there was so much information that they couldn’t access remotely, and it only made sense for someone with an aptitude to go looking for it.

     Another thing that came from running actual missions was that with each base they liberated, Pidge could hunt for more information on her father and brother. Only a few of the galra prisoners had even heard about them, but it gave her a start and some sort of information to cling onto. Nothing specific or concrete had come out of her month in space and running missions, but she grit her teeth and reminded herself of Matt standing in front of a dejected twelve year old Katie, reminding her that she had to be patient.

     She finished suiting up for the mission in the ragtag armor that the Rebels had put together. It was comfortable at this point, and putting it on was all but second nature with the number of missions she had run. She paced over to her tank, given to her by the Olkari techs, and ran her hand over its leg, appreciating the rough texture of the bark, and letting her binary commands flow throughout its form. It opened up and she climbed in, moving it to Rolo’s ship. Keith waited there, having found himself on one of the covert attack teams. They had only run a few missions together, but each time they did, they were an unstoppable team. Pidge’s tank- more of a space vessel with all the modifications she had put on it, and all the help from the various alien rebels, was all but unstoppable in space, and when she was able to breach, she and Keith would sneak in. From there, they’d creep around and Keith would act as defense for her when she was collecting information or disabling universe wide Galra tech. 

     Rolo grinned cockily back at them, then started the ship. Keith sat quietly behind Pidge in her tank, watching everything with his ever vigilant eye. Pidge and Keith were comfortable with their silence. It spanned about half an hour before she heard Rolo over the shared comms. “We’re ready to drop in just a moment. All clear?”

     “All clear,” Pidge said, checking and double checking her systems. 

     “We are dropping you now. Good luck,” Rolo said, and Pidge felt the velocity carry her tank far through space, and counteracted the force with her precise propulsion. They were at a standstill for only a moment while she activated cloaking. Then they were bound for the Galra battleship. 

     She turned her head back to Keith, sure that her auto navigation would taken them where they needed to go. “Ready to do this again?” She asked. He nodded.

     “I’m still looking for info, so I’m still going to be slow while I sweep the databases. Are you fine with that?” She asked, knowing the answer. 

     “Yeah. Keep an eye out for him, okay?” He asked quietly. She nodded, and their discussion was over. She knew that he was running his fingers over his knife, a comforting action to him. She knew that he would barely talk during their run unless it was to call out shots or tell her something vital. She knew that she would probably be the same way, and she could already feel the adrenaline buzzing through her veins. 

     Each and every time she ended up running a mission, she had to fight the terror down, a battle in its own right. She took deep breaths and started to check her systems again, watching as the Galra battleship came into view. 

     The moment between the tank attaching and Pidge launching herself into the ship, She touched the picture and closed her eyes, hoping beyond hope that she could find them this time. That it wouldn’t just be another dead end.

     The moment ended, and Pidge launched herself into the corridor and immediately scanned the area. No life forms or sentries were detected yet (It was much too early for them to notice with her different modifications) and she charged forward. Keith, whose legs were longer than hers, passed her easily and kept careful watch. Every once in a while, he would take his knife out and fling it, not wanting to alert anything in the area with the ringing gunshuts of the guns the rebels had given them. Then he would retrieve it and continue forward. 

     This time, they got to a data bank without too much opposition. Keith paced while Pidge hacked in, fighting the Galra’s defenses easily enough. She logged in and found the prison logs. 

     With a start, she found a familiar face. She didn’t make a sound, but Keith had been watching, and he gasped. 

     He was listed as ‘The Champion.’ He was scheduled for a battle in the afternoon. 

     The scar that ran along his face and the shock of white hair were unfamiliar, but both Keith and Pidge recognized Takashi Shirogane immediately. She turned to Keith. 

     “Let me finish downloading the rest of this data, and we’ll get him. Expect a fight.” Keith nodded tersely, but she could see the fire in his eyes. He went completely still, something Pidge had never seen him do, and stared at the computer screen. 

     It finished and she yanked the chip out. From her wrist, she projected a holographic layout, produced by a small watch-like piece. A big red dot punctuated the map, and Keith glared intently at it for a moment, finding the path. He ran out of the room with no warning, and Pidge took off after him. 

     The first thing she noticed was that the halls seemed too quiet. The Galra should have found them by now. Instead, there was nothing, not even sentries. Keith didn’t even notice.

     “Keith- Hey, listen!” She yelled. “There’s no Galra! Are we running into a trap?” 

     “I don’t care,” He said, and kept moving. She desperately ran to try to catch up with him, but there was no use; He was going after Shiro, and she knew she’d do the same when she finally found her family. 

     They kept going, and Pidge started seeing signs of a battle. At first, it was a few sentries wrecked here and there, but the carnage began to show more the close they got to Shiro’s cell. Keith skidded to a stop in front of it when they finally got there, only to yell curses when he found it empty. She told him loudly to keep going and began yelling out directions for the docking bay, and he caught on quickly. 

     The wreckage was still hot and fresh. There was no way he got away that quickly. 

     Could one man really do so much damage?

     Pidge kept barreling along, hoping to at least keep Keith in sight. In his single minded state, he’d need someone to back him up. Another few halls, and Keith slammed his hand into a control panel. It opened, and he ran in. It occured to Pidge for a moment that it was odd it would open for just anyone, and that they had never done that for her, but there wasn’t enough time to think it through right now.

     In front of them, they saw Shiro back to back with a Galra. Pidge stopped in her tracks for a moment, wondering when the world had suddenly turned upside down.

     Sentries and a few actual Galra were trying to fire around the cover that Shiro and the other Galra were behind, but soon enough they found themselves one by one falling victim to a few well placed shots by the seemingly ally Galra and Pidge, or to Keith’s swift knife. The battle ended in merciless seconds, and Shiro truly took the time to see who else had joined the fray. 

     Keith sheathed his knife and ran toward Shiro, who just looked dazed. She reminded herself that it was pretty improbable that they were there, and Shiro probably thought he was hallucinating.

     She couldn’t stop herself, though. “Where’s Dad- shit, Sam and Matt?” She asked loudly. Shiro turned to her, recognition dawning in his eyes. “Katie?” He asked. 

     She tersely nodded. “Do you know where they are? Are they here?”

     Shiro dropped his head and Pidge felt fear run ice-cold through her body, settling in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t know, Katie, I’m so sorry, I tried so hard, but they took them away, I’m so sorry,” Shiro said, raising his hand to his head. Keith hugged him hard and mumbled something over and over. If Pidge had to guess, it would be ‘It’s not your fault.’

     She echoed the sentiment to him, and he seemed to calm down momentarily. 

     The Galra turned to Keith. 

     “We must leave, but I need to know how you got that blade,” He said. Keith stepped back from Shiro, careful to stay as close as he could, and stared at the Galra.

     “My mom gave it to me,” He said, hand falling on its pommel. 

     “Really now?” He said, glaring at Keith, his tone wholly unbelieving. 

     “Yes. We need to get the hell out of this place now,” He said, taking Shiro’s elbow. Luckily, other than being overwhelmed, Shiro looked relatively fine for the moment. The Galra stared at Keith for a moment, then nodded. 

     “Your vessel is too small. We will take one of the ships here,” the Galra commanded, gesturing at one of the passenger ships still sitting undamaged in the bay. Pidge stared for a moment. 

     She put a hand up to her helmet and hailed Rolo on the rebel channel, and he answered right away. 

     “Change of plans, Rolo. We’re using two ships. Keith’s going to fly a Galra ship we’re stealing, and I’ll be in my tank. Relay to the Princess.” 

     “I hear you loud and clear, Pidgeon. Can do,” He said, then the signal cut off. Then she turned to the Galra.

     “Keith’s going to pilot that ship, and you’re going to explain why you’re helping. I will have my weapons aimed at that pod, so if you do think you could kill them and get out of this scott free, you’re dead wrong. Seeing as you could just take your own ship, I’m going to trust you a little. But I want you to know that Keith here is pretty handy with that knife you love so much.” Keith continued to stare, but considering Keith, it was bound to look angry. “You’re also going to explain why you’re so fascinated with that thing, and I’m going to have my coms on and connected to Keith’s vessel, so no fishy business.”

     The Galra considered it, but nodded in agreement. Wasting no time, She began to run back to her tank, pulling up the map to cut as much time as she could. Luckily, there were lesser known paths that cut a lot of time and skipped the cells and command room all together, and she was able to get back relatively quickly. She launched herself back into her tank and detatched it from the hull. 

     An unknown com pinged her, and she opened it, knowing that it was Keith. Sure enough, his video feed popped up on one of the clear walls.

     The Galra took a moment before he began. “My name is Ulaz, and I am a part of the organization called The Blade of Marmora. We have fought the Empire from its very beginning, when we saw our species decimate planets and populations, and found out the corrupted beast that our emperor had grown to be. I was tasked with retrieving the Champion and sending him back to his planet to pull another species into the rebellion.”

     His statement was met with utter silence, but still he pushed on. “That blade that you wield- it is a ceremonial knife, used in the Blade. Only members have them, and their entire being is a jealously guarded secret. If it is true that your mother gave that to you, you are in some way tied with my organization.”

     Pidge saw all the color drain from Keith’s face. 

     “No.” He said.

     “I will need you to come to the Blade. Something ties you to us, and we need to know.”

     It struck Pidge then that she knew what was going on. She had connected the dots. There was no real way to process it, though.

     Keith was Galra. He could work with their technology, his mother gave him his blade… It was too much to be a coincidence.

     “Keith-” Pidge started, breaking the silence. 

     “No.” He said again. He glared at the window in front of him and focused on piloting the ship. She knew Keith well enough at this point to know that he was pushing the topic away at the moment, and that this would be the end of the discussion. 

     Ulaz wisely decided not to speak. 

     For about half an hour, they kept going, not following the coordinates they needed at the moment, something that showed Pidge clearly that Keith was at a loss as to what to do. 

     “I don’t want to, but I have to go,” He said, determination showing. He had made up his mind, then. 

     “Keith, are you sure that that’s the…. Wisest thing to do?” She asked him. 

     “I apparently don’t know anything about myself. I have to do this. But Shiro needs to go with you. I won’t let the Galra be around him any longer than they need to be.”

     She heard Shiro object. “You’re not going in there alone,” He said, his voice wavering.

     “Shiro, You’re half dead. Don’t do this to yourself. I’ll be fine, I always have been. Go help the rebels take down the Empire, and be safe. Promise me.”

     Ulaz stared at Shiro. “We need you to rally the rebels, Champion. It is not an option.”

     “I won’t-” Shiro started, but Keith glared at him. 

     “Go.” keith said, and turned around. He was done talking, she saw. It was non-negotiable. 

     Shiro crumbled a bit, knowing that between the two of them, he wasn’t going to have a choice. Within ten minutes, Shiro was settled behind Pidge, and Keith had opened a private channel with her.

     “Take care of him. I won’t be gone long, I promise. I just- You know what this is. I saw you put the pieces together. I can’t just ignore this.”

     “I promise, Keith. Just make sure you come back in one piece. Who else is gonna watch my back while I wait for data to download?” She joked weakly, and he laughed. 

     “I promise I’ll be back,” He said, then shut off the channel. She watched as the second ship slowly peeled off course and receded into the distance.

     She hailed Rolo. “Hey, one ship now. Come pick me up. I’ve got a different passenger, though.”

     “Coming right up,” he said, though she could hear the confused undertone in his voice. 

     She steered her tank to the agreed coordinates and soon enough, Rolo’s ship popped into view. Quickly and efficiently, they were loaded into Rolo’s ship, and Pidge commanded the tank to open. 

     “Keith’s gonna be AWOL for a while, doing something. I’m not sure, don’t ask. Something about chasing someone down.” She was still somewhat technically telling the truth, just not all of it. “This is Shiro, one of the crew from the Kerberos Mission. I’m bringing him back to stay with me,” she said. Rolo only nodded, and continued to take them back to the castle. 

     When they arrived, Pidge hopped down into the docking bay, and Shiro followed. She looked down at her watch and tapped a few buttons, and Allura’s voice rang through it. 

     “Pidge, I am glad to know that you made it through your mission successfully.”

     “Thanks, Princess,” Pidge said. “I have someone I’d like you to meet. I think he’d be a good advisor and tactician.” 

     “I’m excited to make their acquaintance. I will be waiting.” She shut down the communication, and Pidge started towards the bridge. She had memorized the way by now, so it didn’t take long to find the door right before them. 

     She palmed it open and found Allura in her suit, working on repairing something with Coran. She looked up as soon as they entered and gave them a smile. She patted Coran’s shoulder and stood up, looking over Shiro curiously. 

     “This is Takashi Shirogane, Princess Allura. He was the pilot of the Kerberos Mission, and one of the people we came to rescue. 

     Allura elegantly stuck her hand out and Shiro shook it wearily. 

     “I hear that you are apt in planning. We could always use more tacticians, Takashi. We would be highly pleased to have you with us.”

     “Call me Shiro,” he said. She saw the unexpected fire rise in his eyes. “I’ll do whatever I need to help you take the empire down.”

     Allura smiled again, but this time it was sharper and knowing. “We’re excited to have you on our team, Shiro.”

     She relaxed again as she looked over him again. “It appears as though you have been through and enormous ordeal. Please, rest and recover. We will call on you soon, but for now, everything is under control.”

     Shiro nodded. “Excuse me, Princess, but I think I’m going to take you up on that offer.” Pidge smiled and waved and began to walk the halls with Shiro.

     “Shiro… I just wanted to say now that we have a second, I’m not going to be mad at you if you don’t know where they are. I was just hoping,” She said, but cut herself off before she could go any further. Shiro’s shoulders seemed to sag again.

     “They were moved not too long after they threw me in the ring. I’m so sorry, Katie.” She saw the anger again. “But I’ll do anything at all to help you find them. I won’t leave them behind.”

     Pidge sighed and gave Shiro a weary smile. “Thanks, Shiro.”

     They finally reached their rooms- Shiro’s was neighboring Keith’s- and both exchanged their goodnights, and collapsed tiredly on their beds.


	4. Chapter 4

     It had been another two months since they had found Shiro and Keith had left. She tried not to let worry gnaw at her, but failed miserably; She hadn’t heard a single thing from him in a while. She could see it affect Shiro, too. But all they could do was just continue doing what they needed to do.

Pidge focused on the data again. It was the middle of the night and the Olkari had given up on blocking her from the lab after she had lost her patience with the practice and simply subverted everything they could do. Besides, Allura had promoted her to the chief Galra Intelligence duty, so she was almost always there late.

     At this point, she was getting antsy. There hadn’t been any info at all on her brother or her father, and her faith was starting to waver. The what-ifs were piling up in her head, weighing her shoulders down.

     What if she was too late?

     Pidge shook her head and rubbed her eye a bit. She had no idea what time it would be on Earth, but she had already snuck into the lab after hours, so it had to be late. She leaned in and focused on the screens in front of her again.

     She was finally breaking through the firewall of one of the more prestigious prisons, one that she had noticed a lot of data flow from. From what she could decode, there were scientific findings coming from the databank. It had taken her weeks to fight through the defenses on the network, which had made her even more sure that there would be something important there.

     Pidge held her little glimmer of hope that her father and Matt would be there, too. It was logical, and logic was all she had to go off of. The Galra were too smart to throw possibilities into the slave pits; they were known for taking advantage of anything they could. She leaned in and decoded for about another hour, then actively went through the code for another. When she finally gained access, she gave a loud cheer, knowing that even if someone was around, they would be too intrigued and excited about her newfound data to send her to bed.

     Most of the database was filled with plans for weapons. Some of them looked like they had been based off of sciences from Earth, while others were completely foreign to her. She downloaded them all anyways and forwarded the info to the Bridge. Allura would be excited to have more info on Galra weapons. 

     After she had sifted through the most important data, she pushed her access further and found the prisoner roll sheet. She sent it through her custom Galra translation program, and while she knew that it only took a few moments to translate due to the incredible Altean technology, it still felt like a lifetime before it came back. 

     She scanned the first page and felt her stomach drop. They weren’t there, but there was another page. 

     Pidge hesitated. On one hand, she could have found her family. On the other, she could be left without any clues again, with time likely ticking out for her brother and father. 

     Nothing would stop her though. Not even her fear. The page turned, and she took a moment to scan it.

     Samuel Holt. Halfway down the page, listed as a human prisoner. Weapons developer. Pidge was too shocked to process it for a moment, and a range of emotions shot through her mind. 

     Go get Allura, make a plan. Cry with relief. Search the roster again for Matt. Fight the fear that maybe she was too late for him. Go get Allura. Raze the whole prison to the ground for taking her family from her. Leave right now and finally get to see her father again.

     Finally, she settled on getting Allura up. 

     Pidge didn’t even think to try to wake Allura with her comm channel. Instead, she pulled up the map of the castle on her little wrist device and charged ahead, running. Time felt like it was trickling out of her fingers, and she was helpless here; Her father had been held captive and forced to work for the enemy. She reached Allura’s door in a few minutes and pounded on it, yelling.

     “Allura, we need to hold an emergency meeting right now!” She yelled. Allura emerged with a shawl hastily thrown over her shoulder. 

     “What has happened?” She asked, still half asleep.

     “I found a Galra prison that’s making its prisoners design weapons for them, and they have my dad!”

     Allura’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’ve finally found him?” She asked. Pidge nodded, and Allura started quickly walking to the Bridge. “We’re going to have to make a plan, but I do agree that we have to take care of this issue and run a rescue mission. The Galra do not need more lethal weapons, and I-” She suddenly stopped speaking and glanced back at Pidge.

     Pidge knew, though. ‘I’m afraid of what they’ve done to break the prisoners.’ She shivered, but the only thing she could do was convince everyone to run the operation as soon as possible. Coran, ever faithful, already stood in the Bridge, evidently having arrived before them. A few of the faction leaders stood around, but there were only a fraction of those who resided in the massive castle.

     While the important leaders were filling in slowly, Pidge sent a private com link to Keith, hoping that he would get it, and that he would be at least awake enough to answer. 

     She waited a few minutes, but nothing was happening. Keith wasn’t picking up.

     Pidge took a deep breath. He would call her back as soon as he saw her attempt. She knew he would. She needed him on this mission; he was the best at watching her back, at keeping her focused, and he was the last connection she really had to Earth. To humans, at this point. 

     Allura glanced over at Pidge and beckoned for Pidge to join her. She cast one last betrayed look at her little device, then marched up to where Allura and Coran stood. 

     “One of our intelligence members found something rather disturbing just moments ago,” she said, loudly and clearly. “The Galra have gathered prisoners of higher intelligence and forced them to design weapons for them. This facility is a clear threat, and our first goal is always to liberate the prisoners of the Galra.”

     Coran looked a bit uneasy. “Princess… While I fully agree that this is a vital issue, I don’t know if we really have enough people to target a prison that big and important,” he said sadly. “It’s likely that it is guarded fiercely, and running such an operation would demand more resources than we even have.”

     “We cannot leave the prisoners trapped, Coran, nor can we afford the Galra having more weapons to destroy us. We just have to work out how to distribute our forces the best. There has to be a way,” she said strongly, looking out to the uneasy crowd of rebel leaders. 

     None of them could disagree, but Pidge could tell that all of them were doubtful of their ability to carry out such a mission with such a small force. She couldn’t even say that she blamed them, either. It could easily turn into a massacre. It could end the rebels all together.

     She looked at her incoming comms again. The log was pitifully empty. She wished that Keith would finally answer her; at this point, it was worrying. 

     This was starting to look desperately bleak. She had to fight through the impulse to go save her father right that moment, because she wouldn’t be any good to him dead. The rebels wouldn’t do the universe good if they were dead, either, so while she felt herself losing patience, she struggled against the feeling, knowing that they had every right to debate this.

     Dread suddenly sunk in her stomach like a stone as she wondered what she would do if the Rebels decided to wait. Going alone was a death sentence, and only taking a few people wasn’t much better.

     What could she do? Was she still this helpless?

     The small device on her wrist lit up, jarring her from her thoughts. She opened the channel quickly and retreated to a less populated corner of the room.

     “Are you alright?” Keith asked hurriedly. She nodded, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

     She didn’t speak for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts into a cohesive pattern. 

     “I found my dad. But he’s in one of the high priority Galra prisons.”

     “Oh,” Keigh said. “Oh shit.”

     Pidge nodded. “The rebels want to take down the base. They’re forcing prisoners to design weapons for them, and the Galra are smart enough to collect a diverse amount of intelligent prisoners, so they can have weapons of more than one type. The problem is that we don’t have enough people.”

     Keith thought for a second, and sudden realization dawned on his face. “That’s insane.”

     “It’s the only way to make this work, Keith.”

     “The Rebels hate the Galra!”

     Pidge looked at him, as head-on as she could get through video feed. “Both of our groups need the same exact thing right now. Desperation is our friend. I don’t trust some of the Galra, but I saw what they did, and I need help, Keith. I need your help, and I need the help of the people who can help me save my father.”

     Keith took a deep breath. “I’ll try, Pidge. But the Blades are secretive and they don’t trust anyone, not even their own members. Ulaz was the nicest version of these Galra that you’re going to find.”

     “I don’t need nice. I need help.”

     Keith sighed and put his hand on his temple for a moment. “I’ll make them listen. I can’t guarantee that they’ll come to help, but I swear I’ll do everything I can to make them listen.”

     “Thank you, Keith. I mean it.” 

     “We’re in this together, right? You helped me and Shiro, and it’s time I helped you and your dad. Besides… You’ve been here for me, and that’s not something I take lightly.” 

     “Don’t forget that you’re half the reason we were able to come and find our families,” Pidge said, a hint of warmth finding its way into her voice. Keith smiled, and they hastily said their goodbyes before she shut down the link.

     She wanted to stay, to help shape the plans, but at this point, there were just several leaders arguing about how possible the idea was. Nothing was going to get done tonight, and she had already given all of her information to Allura. She slowly made her way back to her room, trying to ignore the way the silence around her magnified the weight pushing her shoulders down. 

     She fell onto her bed, suddenly exhausted. Nobody needed her at the moment, and she doubted she’d get much time in the immediate future to sleep, so she curled up and tried not to think about the swirling thoughts in her head in favor of sleep.

-

     Pidge woke up with a headache and five messages. All of them were from Keith, and each one was more and more concerned. She looked at the time and was shocked to see that she had slept ten hours.

     She scrolled through Keith’s messages and selected the first. She read it three times to make sure that she had read it correctly. 

     The Blade was willing to help as long as the course of action was favorable. That was certainly one of the last messages she’d been expecting to see, especially so soon. 

     How was she going to convince Allura to meet with the Galra, though? Though Allura had grown to trust her for sound information and advice, that trust only went so far, and Pidge could understand that there were limits that shouldn’t be pushed, such as possibly allying with people who could unravel all their work. But the Empire would just do that anyways, in a slower and more methodical way, so there was no real choice to be found. 

     She stared down at her tablet for a moment when it lit up. She knew exactly who it was, but she wasn’t really expecting a call from him. He was always much too busy to call.

     “Hey Pidge. Do the Rebels have a plan yet?”

     “Not really,” She said, running her hand over the back of her neck for a moment. “They’re mainly arguing. We don’t really have enough people to run a big operation, but we have to do it anyways.”

     “So…. Do you have a plan?”

     “I don’t really know how to bring the Blade up to them. Everyone here hates the galra so much, it almost seems impossible to get them to change their mind. I’ll find a way, though.”

     Keith was silent for a moment. “Tell Allura I’m coming back, and that I want to talk to her.”

     Pidge eyed Keith through their video feed. “Why?” There was a thought in the back of her mind, but she wasn’t quite sure that Keith would ever be so extreme. Keith was the cautious one. Yeah, he took risks, but he guarded himself and the things he cared about jealousy.

     “She knows and trusts a Galra already, Pidge. If this is what it takes to get your dad back, I’ll do it.”

     She stared at him with horror in her face for a few moments, then shook her head. “Keith, what the fuck? If this ends badly, she could hurt you. Her entire world was destroyed by the Galra, and people act extreme when they think that someone has betrayed them.”

     “Pidge, this is something I have to do. Allura wouldn’t kill me, and I think that this is the only shot we really have at getting the Rebels to trust the Blade. No matter what you say, I have to do this. If not for you, for everyone.”

     “You’re being a sacrificial idiot, Keith. There has to be some way, something that will make sure that there isn’t a battle between them. Or you and Allura.”

     Keith stared at her, completely quiet. “You know that this is the best way, Pidge. I know you overthink things, but I promise that it will work out. It has to. Leave this one to me, focus on saving your dad.”

     Pidge didn’t want to give up on trying to turn Keith away from his course of action, but she had known him long enough that she knew that if he was set on something, nothing short of galactic destruction could stop him. 

     “Keith, you have to think about this.”

     “I have. All night. I’m okay with this, Pidge, and I’m going to do it. I’m clearing the path for you to be able to do this.”

     “I really can’t change your mind, then.”

     “No, not really. I’m going to make this work. It’s going to help you, the rebellion, and the entire universe, Pidge. I would be stupid to ignore the chance.”

     “Just be careful, Keith. Leave if anything starts looking vaguely angry. You and Shiro are all I have up here, and losing one of you isn’t something I want to consider.”

     “I’ll be back, Pidge. You need someone to worry over, after all,” Keith said with a grin. She scrunched her nose up and they both laughed for a moment. 

     “See ya later, Pidgeon,” Keith said, still smiling. She could see the energy and anticipation build in his posture and the fiery determination he got when he was completely resolved to do something. 

     The call ended, and Pidge sat on the edge of her bed for a while. Then, she sent Allura a message about Keith coming to see them, and she paced her room for a few minutes. She wanted to gather more data, but she had extracted all she could have without getting caught, and there was no way she would ever risk compromising herself and hurting her father in any way. She had to be patient, but she was terrible at it. She decided to walk the halls and meandered for a while, eventually finding herself back at the lab, as she always did. 

     Pidge shrugged and palmed the door lock, listening to it as it slid open, and walking in towards her tank. There seemed to be a liveliness and bustling nature that hadn’t really been there before. People rushed around or stared intently at their code. It was incredibly easy to slip in the crowd, and even easier to reach her device. She slid one of the extra laptops she’d hidden out of its nook and booted it up, soothing her impatience with a review of the code. She’d done it a million times already, but it was a safety net, and a beginning to any modification projects. 

     What would she need this time, though? She had partial invisibility (active camouflage, a technology perfected by the Alteans), she had temporary speed boosts and a few special weapons developed, engineered into her tank, and ready to go. She had active detection of any lifeforms that specifically marked Galra. 

     She looked through the code for about two hours, skimming and going back to check on detailed, more precise work. Everything was in its place, though, and she was currently unable to think of anything else to outfit her device with. 

     She slid the laptop back into its nook and worked her way out of the room, impatient. She knew exactly what Keith was doing right now; The moment he appeared, he’d go straight to Allura and tell her, and deal with the consequences. He wouldn’t tell Pidge that he was there, but it was fair to her, as this was a very private situation. 

     She headed up to Rolo instead. When she finally reached the door, Beezer opened it for her, and she smiled wearily down at him. Beezer was always happy to see her after she had repaired him when things had gone south on a mission. 

     “Hey there, little green human. What’s up?” Rolo asked, popping up from his mechanical work because of Beezer’s sound. She sighed and he looked at her curiously. She walked over and climbed up onto the wing of the ship he was working on. “Do you think we’ll be able to do this? I mean… I have to,” She said, waving animatedly. “But nobody else really has to. They could walk away from this and find a different way to deal with the weapons.”

     Rolo put down his wrench and leaned against the wing, clearly thinking. 

     “Most of the people here are good people. They joined the cause because this war cursed them to see the devastation it has caused across the universe. I don’t think a single one of them could rationalize leaving prisoners to the Galra. Sure, we could just neutralize the weapons- these crazy Alteans, there’s basically nothing they can’t do. But it’s not just a tactical thing, Green. It’s an emotional choice.”

     “But emotions can be wrong!” She said stubbornly. 

     He looked at her with a look that spoke volumes about how much he knew she was reaching. “You may be young, but you’ve been a part of this war. If Nyma were to be imprisoned, I know that you wouldn’t hesitate to help me rescue her. You have no real reason to help me besides your empathy. Our emotions are dictated by our experiences, little human, and I think that everyone who has been pulled into this war is going to make that emotional decision.”

     He wasn’t wrong, she had to admit. Her decision to launch herself into space to find her family was entirely emotional, but it had been beneficial. Her decision to go along with Keith was the same. Erring from the mission and saving Shiro was emotional too, and she knew that she would never make a different decision on that mission. 

     She sighed in defeat, and Rolo laughed in response. “Give us a little faith, yeah?”

     “I trust you guys,” She said, completely honestly. 

     The moment was broken by Nyma yelling Rolo’s name, badgering him to get back to work. Beezer winked at her with his one eye and rolled away after the mechanic. 

     Trust. It was the principle they had built the entire rebellion on. She needed to embrace it and lean into it.

     Pidge closed her eyes in the hallway outside of Rolo’s bay. She knew that Keith had to be in the castle at this point, and at such a vital time before a mission, Allura would be on the bridge. 

     She trusted them, she really did, but she couldn’t bear to wait for this issue to sort itself out without her. It was her father’s life that hinged on all of this, and she felt like it was only right to be nervous. She didn’t want to admit that she was a little afraid for Keith too, because he was telling Allura about his Galra blood.

     Before she could even really think it through, she started running. She had the halls memorized by now, so she wound her way around until she finally found the right door. She took a deep breath and charged in.

     So she’d been right. Allura and Keith were in a heated conversation, and when Pidge took the time to really study Allura’s expression, she looked as if she was going to cry in addition to the livid nature of her mood. 

     Both of them had turned to face her, and she straightened herself out. “Princess, I don’t like it any more than you do, but we need the Blade. Please!”

     “What makes you think we could ever trust a quiznacking Galra?” Allura cried. “They’ve done nothing but methodically destroy the universe, piece by piece!”

     Keith leaned forward, a snap of anger in his eyes. “You’ve fought by my side! I’ve fought for you for months, Allura! When did I ever look like I was going to destroy the universe?”

     She whirled back to him, at a loss for words. She crumbled a bit, and Pidge’s heart twinged with pain for her. 

     “Allura, I know that they did terrible things. They’re still doing terrible things. But I won’t ever be like them, and the Blade has been working since Altea fell to take down the Empire. They’re not trying to destroy more, they’re trying to right old wrongs.”

     “Keith, every one of my people were killed by Zarkon’s command. He could not have destroyed our world by himself- he had to have subordinates, captains under his command to mobilize armies, and soldiers to raze the surface of the planet to destroy innocent survivors. If there were only one monster, my people would not have died. My father would not have died.” Tears fell from her eyes, but she stood nobly and tall anyways, making no motion to wipe them away. 

     “Allura… We want to keep that from happening. All of us, every rebel, wants the same thing. To remove that threat from the Universe. But we can’t do it scattered and fighting amongst each other. We have to work with people we may have a hard time working with. But at least then we know that the citizens of this universe are safe from the atrocities that the Galra commit.”

     Pidge could see the conflict in Allura’s eyes. She knew what Keith had said was true, but there were so many reasons to turn the Galra away.

     Something unexpected happened, though. She saw Allura slump a bit in defeat. 

     “You are, of course, correct, Keith. The rebels… They won’t like this. But we cannot survive without help from other rebels. Just… Tell them. I’ll meet with them, but if they act suspiciously in any way, I have no choice but to retaliate. I don’t trust them, not yet; they have to prove themselves to me.”

     Keith nodded, stoic as ever, as if he hadn’t just gathered the two parties together. She gestured for him to leave, but motioned to Pidge to stay.

     As soon as Keith was gone, she slumped down and sat on the steps leading up to the controls. “I don’t know if I did the right thing or not, Pidge. This very well may be an ambush, and I could have doomed us all.” 

     Pidge sat down next to her and pulled her into a hug, to which Allura accepted. 

     “You haven’t doomed anyone. If this is a trap, we have backup. You’re the leader of a universal rebellion, Allura, and your job is to make the hard decisions. One of those is knowing where to find allies.”

     She nodded. “I’ve never been able to make a decision I knew was absolutely right. There’s always such a risk that is born from each of them. It never really gets easier.” 

     “But you’ve led all of us to success, and none of us would be here right now if you hadn’t fought as hard as you have. That’s something to be proud of. My dad always told me that if you get too worried about what could go wrong, you miss a chance to do something great. I think that you’re doing those great things all the time, princess, and if you get hung up on what could go wrong, you’ll miss your chances.”

     Allura thought about it for a moment, and Pidge smiled to see her resolve. For a moment, she wondered if this was how her father felt when she had also responded with resolve years and years ago, but she shook away the thought, not wanting to get lost in the situation. 

     “You can do this, Allura,” she said confidently, and Allura hugged Pidge back before standing up. 

     “I couldn’t have done this without you, Pidge,” She said earnestly. “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I’m going to go try to discuss a plan moving forward with the leaders.” 

     Pidge smiled and waved, but Allura stood in front of her still. “I promise you that we’re going to save your father as soon as possible. I swear it.”

     “I trust you,” she responded. Allura sprung from the room and Pidge watched the door close, leaving her to be the only person in the room. 

     They were going to save her father.


	5. Chapter 5

     Pidge nervously paced the hallway in front of her room, thinking furiously over all of the possibilities. The Blade could betray them, but that wasn’t likely and it would serve no purpose. They could be feeding information to the Empire, but she had been monitoring the Empire’s communications and data, and it didn’t look like the Blade was anywhere in the databases. They could be actual rebels, which was, of course, the ideal. They could also be an extreme splinter group of the Galra, which again wasn’t likely, but still a possibility. 

     Shiro watched her pace silently. He had been much more quiet and subdued starting at breakfast, when she had first seen him. The answer to his behaviour was as obvious as the sun on a bright, clear day: It was having to be around Galra. The very same beings who had imprisoned him, tortured him, and forced him to fight and kill for over a year now. She wished she could do anything to calm his mind, but she couldn’t think of a single thing to do for him. 

     “Damn,” she muttered. Shiro, lost in thought, didn’t even look up. There was still and hour before the meeting, and it was a short enough time to not quite know what to do with. 

     She decided that pacing more was not going to solve any of her problems, but it was still the only thing to really do. She’d reviewed the data at least seven times between the night before and now, and she knew the facts. The facts weren’t the problem though- no, the problem was with what lay between the facts. Motive, ties, ideology, anything; The Blade were a total enigma, purposefully wiped from the realm of data. They were good, she had to give them that. 

     She settled on reviewing the data again anyways. Attacks too well orchestrated to be rebel groups that didn’t belong to the Altean Alliance, attacks commited from inside the Empire, anything out of the ordinary. While some of the attacks she had gathered may not have belonged to the Blade, it only made sense that the majority of them did. Prisoners were freed, cameras were destroyed, and officials were taken down. Of course, only part of those had been successful; some of the officials had been replaced with far more cruel soldiers than before.

     They could be reliable. If they had any hopes of saving her father and the other prisoners and destroying the weapons, they were mostly pinned on the Blade being an actual rebel group.

     When Coran stepped into view, Pidge realized that she had gotten herself lost in the data. They had fifteen minutes before the meeting, and it would take 5 to get there.

     Both Pidge and Shiro took a moment to steel themselves, took a deep breath, and began to follow Coran, side by side. There was something comforting about Shiro, whether that be his size and prowess or just by virtue of being another human. They quickly and silently walked the halls, appearing before the door. Coran plunged in with no hesitation, and both of them followed close behind. 

     Keith caught her eye and smiled gently and reassuringly, and Shiro looked visibly more confident when Keith had given his okay. He was still pale and a bit shaky, but he looked like he could face this head on.

     “Those present in this meeting are either highly regarded and trusted members of the Altean Alliance or Prestigious members of the Blade. We are here today to discuss the possibility of becoming allies, as I truly believe that both of our groups would highly benefit from.”

     A Galra stepped forward, one that Pidge assumed was the leader of the Blades. “We also desire an alliance, Princess of the Alteans.”

     They went back and forth, Pidge paying strict attention of the goings-on. Both of them seemed to agree that they wanted to ally the groups, but both of them were verbally of skirting the assurance that they would actually do so. 

     She had to bite down her frustration at the snail’s pace that this was taking. She knew that politics were agonizingly slow, but she couldn’t even fault Allura for being cautious. 

     That didn’t stop her from wanting to jump in and yell at the both of them. 

     Instead, she sent Keith a message.  _ When are they going to get to the real discussion? The fact that the Empire hasn’t attacked yet is good evidence to back up your claim that they’re here for real.  _

     Keith looked down and then back around, trying to see if anyone would pay any attention to him. Nobody seemed to be focused on any of the other people in the room; they were too busy watching their leaders and waiting for something to happen.

_      Both of them are afraid of the other setting a trap. It’s not an easy fear to dissuade. _

     Pidge sighed. She felt a bit like an impudent child because of her impatience, but she wanted them to get this over with, lest they get stuck in their fear forever. Allura was intently focused on the Blade leader, so Pidge wouldn’t be able to catch her eye. 

     So she just had to trust that they could work it out without her nudge to Allura.

     She settled in for a long, painstaking battle.

-

     Two hours later, they finally agreed to take the chance and fully ally. Another step closer to a mission- but they hadn’t made a plan yet, and from the size of the undertaking, they’d need a full plan.

     The problem was that everything anyone proposed was hotly debated. It was flawed for this reason of that, Something wasn’t possible, or the plan would break at the slightest change. They needed a distraction, but working around the weapons and tech that the prison had was something of a perplexing challenge, as the Galra had been clever enough to run them on seperate systems. Pidge didn’t know if she wanted to congratulate the person who had made that decision or punch them- or both. There were too many to shoot out, and there was no way to pull a domino effect and take them offline all at once. One of the rebels had proposed using someone as bait to draw the fire, but that was quickly shot down, as there were too many weapons for even a few pilots to distract, and the weapons were rigged to a system, not to galra control. Pidge thought on that for a moment before stepping forward. 

     “I could program a dozen bots to fly erratically and quickly. They could look like a threat to the system and it’s less likely that they’ll get hit because their movements will be unpredictable. That should be able to draw fire until we can take them down,” She said. She saw a few heads nodding, a few hands on chins, and a few that didn’t apparently know what she had meant. Ryner thought on it for a few moments, then nodded. “Princess, that could work very well.”

     Allura nodded. “That’s all the affirmation I need. Pidge, get to work on those bots as soon as possible, and make as many as possible. If any of our tech department can spare any time, I wish for them to join her.”

     They all nodded, and Pidge launched her way to the development room that held scraps and pieces. A minute later, Keith stood in the doorway, watching her until she noticed (which, to her credit, was not very long at all.)

     “I’m back,” He said with a grin. She gave him a brief side hug, her other arm full of parts and pieces. He chuckled a bit. “Good to see that you’re the same as ever.”

     “Shut up, you’ve only been gone for a few months,” She said playfully. He watched her instead of answering.

     Pidge was enamored by her project. It was something achievable, something tangible to work towards to help her father. Keith helped by handing her parts, and helping with the simpler mechanical things. He’d told her back on their stolen Garrison ship that he had been his own mechanic on his motorcycle, and it showed now. He didn’t have the advanced principles of space flight down, but he knew how to make it run at first, and from there, she could tinker and program. As they worked, she smiled, noticing once more that they worked well as a team. Both of them were aware of the other, enough to work and move as fluidly as possible. She’d truly missed this.

     After another hour, Shiro meandered his way in. “They’re still arguing about what to do after your bots, Pidge.” He looked over and watched Keith, who had stuck a bit of his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he had been addressing a particularly annoying issue, and smiled. Then, he walked over and pulled Keith into a hug.

     “I missed you, Keith. You had me a bit worried.”

     “You always worry,” Keith answered. Shiro gave him a look. “I do have to be worried over you. Promise me that you won’t go charging ahead into the lair of a secretive organization again, will you?” Shiro’s statement may have been half joking, but Pidge knew that there was a lot of emotion behind that statement. She agreed with all of it, too.

     Keith must have seen it too, because he nodded seriously. “I won’t, Shiro. I told them that I wanted to come back anyways.” 

     Shiro’s sigh of relief was clear through his body language. He visibly relaxed after Keith’s promise. 

     She ignored the fact that they were all about to plunge themselves back onto the front lines of a space war, and any of them could disappear at any moment.

-

     Pidge woke up over her work, a few nuts and bolts and wrenches digging into her arms and cheek, to someone shaking her. She tried to bat them away, grumbling and still half-awake, but they only got more persistent. She cracked open her eye a bit, blinking at the light, and recognized Keith. 

     “They have a plan,” he said, and she jolted up into a sitting position, despite her head spinning for a second. All traces of sleep had fled from her head, and Keith looked a bit concerned- She probably looked wild, hair all over the place and eyes wild, red marks from all the things she had fallen asleep on. “They want to meet in an hour and a half, so I figured I’d wake you up with enough time to let you clean up.”

     A part of Pidge wished he had let her sleep, but it was probably better that she not look like an utter mess, even if it didn’t necessarily matter around Allura, who was also just as much of a mess half the time. 

     She quickly showered, brushed through her hair to tame it down at least a little, and put on her casual Olkari outfit. It was one of the three she had, and she doubted she needed to look like she was completely ready to throw herself into a battle at any second. 

     Then, all that was left to do was wait. She thought about going back to the lab, but she had already given it over to a team so that she could go to the meeting. Training was probably out, because she didn’t need to look sweaty and ruin her shower. She also knew herself well enough to know that she would lose track of time training. 

     Instead of lurking in dark halls and thinking too much, Pidge decided to head to the meeting room. She found Allura there, talking to Coran, while the Blade members were talking amongst themselves. 

     Allura’s face lit up when she saw Pidge, and she waved excitedly. Pidge waved back and walked over.

     “Pidge! I am so glad to see that you could make it. I’ve been astounded by your progress on your project, and I must admit I was slightly worried that you might sleep through our meeting.”

     “Keith woke me up, and I would never miss this.”

     Coran grinned. “I knew that was a wise decision,” he said, rather self-congratulatory. Pidge just shrugged. 

     “The meeting may start in a moment, if everyone is early enough. We’re on something of a time crunch, so it would be nice to get this over with,” Allura said distractedly. 

     Pidge scanned the room. There weren’t many present, but those that were were legendary within the rebellion. They were the best of the best, only the most trusted and devoted of the rebels, and Keith appeared, talking in hushed tones to Shiro. 

     A finesse mission, possibly. Force wasn’t the plan, then. 

     Allura seemed to be mentally tallying everyone up and looking at the time. When she finished, she told Coran to keep his eye out for stragglers and update anyone not present on the plan. Then she climbed onto the platform and the room fell silent. The tall Blades leader gracefully strode over to join her, and they stood side by side.

     “We have decided how to proceed, my friends,” Allura said. “This will be a harrowing, daring mission. It is not for the faint of heart- though, neither is rebelling against a ten-thousand year old Empire.”

     She paused to pull up a hologram of the prison, complete with notes and little icons of groups. 

     “The plan is relatively simple. Pidge’s bots will distract the defenses, and while the chaos ensues, we will slip in. We will have a few very skilled pilots amongst the decoys who don’t need to engage at all, just make the ruse seem more believable. After we’ve landed, we will rely on our intel teams to feed us information. They’re sending one of their own with us on this mission, but he will remain on the ship. He will be working with our tech teams to bring down defenses for as long as possible. Extraction team will extract the prisoners, while the tech team takes the weapon schematics and corrupts the Galra database so that the information is destroyed. We will have a defense team that defends the extraction team and all of the prisoners. By that time, the ground defenses will be disabled. By the time we’re out, they won’t have been able to receive reinforcements, and we will have all of the prisoners safely aboard the castle. We will begin to assign teams as soon as this meeting is over, and you will receive notification of your position after a few hours. We will run this mission in two days, so you will have little time to prepare. Any questions?” The crowd began to buzz, and Pidge turned back to Coran. 

     “I’m going to go ahead and assume that because I’m here, I’m on the mission. Did Allura already have a team in mind for me?” She asked. Coran grinned.

     “Of course, Pidgeon!” His expression softened. “She knew you would accept no less than extraction. You are, after all, rescuing your father.” He sighed in relief, but launched herself at Coran for a hug. “Tell Allura that I can’t thank her enough. I couldn’t have done any of this without her.” He ruffled her hair and smiled back. “Of course!”

     She ran back to the lab, mind set, and threw herself back into work.  
-

     Two days passed in the flash, and before she knew it, Pidge stood in her room with Keith and Shiro, part of the Defense team, clad in her armour. 

     Three hours before she saw her father. She couldn’t sit still, pacing back and forth, while Keith was lost in his blade and Shiro watched, concerned.

     She’d scoured over the plan over and over the past two days, thinking of any problem they could reasonably encounter and the possible solutions for those problems. 

     Nobody wanted to break the silence, so Pidge just kept pacing and thinking. She’d turned over the remaining work on the distraction bots and spent all of the day before searching at a feverish pace for her brother, but nothing seemed to be turning up. It was starting to get more frustrating, and fear was creeping into her mind. He most likely wasn’t being held in the same prison as her father, as she had scoured the roster and the reports from the prison time and time again. 

     She’d searched the fighting pit footage for matches of Matt’s face, but everything came up negative. She had also yet to come upon his name in any of the records in the mines they threw slaves into to work. It was as if her brother didn’t exist at all.

     Pidge was torn from her thoughts and felt her stomach drop for a second as a hand came down on her shoulder. She whirled around, but it was just Shiro, looking impossibly more concerned than he had a moment ago. 

     “It’s going to be okay,” He reassured her. It echoed all the times everyone had told her that same phrase, times where everything went wrong, as if to prove that the statement was a precursor to something going wrong.

     “We’re charging into a highly secure alien prison with barely enough soldiers and a shaky plan, which is the best we could come up with. Probably not all that fine.” She didn’t snap at him, to her credit, but she realized belatedly that repeating to himself and others that it would be fine may have been Shiro’s way of calming himself down. Luckily, though, he seemed more resolute, even through his concern. 

     “We’re working with people who know how to win, even against the odds. We can trust them to do everything they can. We’ve done what we can for now, Pidge. All we have left is to take a deep breath, get ready, and save Commander Holt.” 

     Pidge sighed. “I know. It’s just.. There are a million moving factors in this, and I can’t help but think about how they could go wrong. I have backup plans for backup plans, but there’s no way to plan for everything.” She hesitated. “I’m closer to dad than I have been in a while, Shiro. I’m so afraid that I’m not going to be able to get him back.”

     Shiro sat on the side of the bed and motioned for her to join him. She hesitantly sat, reluctant to give up her pacing. 

     “He’s going to be so proud of you, Katie,” he said, and she sat bolt upright. She hadn’t expected him to use that name. “We’re here to help you, and we can do this. I know you well enough to know that you will stop at nothing to find your family. We’re here to back you up and make that happen, okay?”

     She nodded. Keith had said something along those lines the day before, when he had dropped in and watched her work. 

     No matter what, she had at least two people in her corner. She could work with that.

     They spent the next few hours talking and trying to calm themselves. It worked for the most part, until Pidge found herself boarding a large ship, which Rolo was piloting. She could see the defense team gathering around their team’s leader, and others were starting to do the same. She wandered over to the tech team first, led by Ryner. Pidge knew that her mission was twofold; first she would help the tech team bring down the firewalls and disable as much as she could, and when they were close enough to drop to the base, she’d go with the evac team. 

     Ryner was providing the team with a rundown that Pidge knew by heart, as she was the provider of that information. Instead, she watched the other teams, and slowly gravitated to the Evac team, who were reviewing schematics for the building. 

     Ten minutes later, Allura’s voice came over the comms.

     “I am not going to lie to you,” she said. “This mission will be a difficult one. There is every possibility that many of you will not come back from this mission.”

     Silence reigned over the ship, and everyone’s attention was trained on the speakers. 

     “You are the best soldiers for this job. Each of you came to me and asked to join this mission. What will allow us to prevail is your passion and your empathy for those who are held captive by the empire. We will not ever allow the injustices of the empire to stand, and this mission proves that our resolve will take us further than the empire’s greed and hatred. Fight well, my friends, and remember that the rebellion only grows stronger, and we will achieve peace without a doubt!”

     A cheer rippled through the crowd of soldiers, and Pidge felt energy rush through her system. They were starting to take off now, and they were beginning the mission. They would wormhole any moment, but none of them would feel it- Allura’s wormholes were incredible and mysterious.

     She rejoined Ryner, who handed her her laptop from her station. 

     “I thought you may want your device. You are, after all, more comfortable with your own computer,” She said, and Pidge accepted it with a grin, then thanked her. She set to work immediately, watching their progression as more and more tears began to open in the system. It wasn’t long before they had complete control over the systems, which they were starting to shut down one by one. She looked down at the active radar she had pulled from Rolo’s controls, watching as a bot would be destroyed every once in a while as the actual pilots escaped unscathed. 

     Then, all at once, the enemy fire disappeared, and the moment seemed oddly peaceful. A moment of hush and calm settled over the battle, before a second later it was shattered by the rebels jumping into action. Ryner took her laptop, and Pidge launched herself to the bay that was opening. One of the other soldiers from the evacuation team handed her a chute, and she hastily put it on. One by one, the evac and defense teams were dropping off the ship, hurtling towards the planet. She watched them all, until it was her turn.

     She took a deep breath and stepped off the side of the bay, feeling the air around her tear at anything it could, and watching the ground grow larger and larger. The people around her were lower down, obviously, but they seemed so far; the absurdity of how small they were to her hit her, and she almost wanted to laugh a breathless laugh. She held her hand by the release, counting down, and watching as the figures below her continued to hurtle, none of them having released their chutes yet. 

     She watched the first as he finally pulled it, and saw them start to bloom afterwards. She yanked hard on the release cord and felt the reassuring yank as she slowed down. 

     When Pidge finally allowed herself to look down, she saw the prison. It was a large, looming piece of architecture, sprawling over the land and separated into buildings connected by thin hallways. The center of the prison held the prisoners, serving as a work area large enough to allow engineering with as much ease as would be afforded to prisoners. It also held the tactical advantage of being the hub of activity, and a much more secure place to hold both the work and the prisoners. 

     Her father was in there, unaware that he would be free in mere minutes. She felt her determination and resolve, as she was ready to do whatever was necessary to get him back.

     When they finally landed on the roof of the prison, the groups formed back up, and they all gathered together. 

     “Defense team will lead, and Evac team will split off when necessary to get the prisoners out of their cells. Each of the cells need a manual input as well as a remote input. Luckily, the remote part is done. There are enough of us here that we can all take two, as was stated in the mission briefing. You know which numbers you’ve been assigned to.”

     With that, Keith popped open one of the maintenance hatches, and the teams filed in, infiltrating the core of the building. They made short work of the travelling, and she watched through a vent as Keith dropped down and immobilized a completely unaware guard. Each of them dropped down and charged forward, set on their goals.

     Pidge was last, and immediately after she dropped down, she took off running. She passed each of the evac team members, leaving behind the commotion of battle, and found herself at the end of a hall, facing the very last two doors. She took the panel off of the wall by the door and worked quickly with the wires, tricking it to give a manual override signal. Within moments, the door slid open, revealing an alien creature cowering in the corner. It looked up at her, eyes full of fear, and then confusion as it processed the scene before it. She waved it over, and it reluctantly obeyed. 

     Then she turned to the last door. She felt her hands shaking and cursed a bit. She needed everything to be perfect at the moment; she couldn’t mess this up. She took a moment and calmed herself, reassuring herself that she would do this and that it would all be fine, before she began to do the same thing as she had done to the other door. It appeared as if this door had multiple overrides, and she tried to patiently configure each of them. Each moment, she battled the unrest that was growing inside her.

     She stood back with a triumphant yelp, and watched the agonizingly slow doors slide open. 

     She wanted to cry when she finally saw him. 

     Sam Holt stared her down defiantly, even though he seemed fragile at the moment. He was paler than she had ever seen him, and bruises littered his face and arms. There was still a determined set to his shoulders that seemed to battle with the thin nature of his body and the fragility that he held.

     She took her helmet off and stared, and he made a slightly choked sound. 

     “Katie?” He sounded devastated. She launched herself at him, and he gathered her close. 

     “Katie, what are you doing here? How did you even get here?”

     “I finally found you, dad- We’re here to save you!” She stared up at him as he just stared back dazedly. 

     It only took a moment for her to launch into her question. “Dad, is Matt here?”

     Sam seemed to fold a bit, and Pidge felt fear strike her heart hard. 

     “Dad, do you know where he is? Please, dad-” 

     “I don’t know, Katie. I’m sorry.” 

     She tried to think about it logically, knowing that it was a good thing that he didn’t know. They would have used it as leverage if they knew he was dead. In fact, knowing that her father hadn’t given in, she knew that they couldn’t hold Matt hostage. 

     She couldn’t stop the disappointment, though. She knew that she shouldn’t have held that hope, that she could find them both at the same time. It only ever had let her down.

     She heard a set of gunshots in the distance and shot back up out of her father’s hug, though she definitely didn’t go far at all. She saw the other prisoner she had freed not too far away, staring at them both. 

     “We need to get out of here. Follow me,” She said, and jogged from the room, trying to set a pace that wasn’t too demanding but was still quick enough. Luckily, the alien and her father seemed to be able to keep up with her. She navigated the winding halls with ease, though she hadn’t been through the same route when she had come through the first time. The closer they came to the center of the compound, the closer the sounds of the battle that seemed to be winding down. They all knew that it wouldn’t be a long battle; with the weapons and tech owned by both parties, the battle would not drag on. 

     Pidge stopped at a corner and gestured for her father and the alien to stop, and after making sure that they had understood, peeked out into the room. She sighed heavily with relief when she saw the rebels still standing in the near conclusion of the battle, having only lost a few soldiers. She turned back to the two people behind her.

     “We’re clear for now, but you should be on the lookout still. There could be backup, though I doubt it.” They both nodded solemnly, and they climbed down the stairs into the center room itself. Keith saw her immediately and grinned. He started moving towards her, but another motion caught her eye; One of the helmeted soldiers from the extraction team started running her direction at full speed. In her momentary panic, she lifted her pistol and trained it on them. She moved herself so that her father and the second prisoner were directly behind her.

     The entire room fell silent as the tension in the room grew. The helmeted soldier slowed down and threw their hands up into the air, motioning that they were clearly unarmed. She still didn’t trust them. They could easily be skilled in fighting without weapons, after all. Keith was already at her side, knife in hand, ready to fight. Shiro looked doubtful, and was starting to try to talk both parties down from a fight. 

     The stranger was a rebel, but that didn’t mean anything. She refused to risk anything at all now that she had just gotten her father back.

     They stopped, and motioned at their helmet. She thought about it, but Shiro beat her to the answer, and nodded at them.

     They took their helmet off slowly and with both hands, revealing a shock of light brown hair and a human face, and golden eyes that were familiar in every way. 

     For a second, Pidge wondered if she was simply hallucinating. If somehow she had gotten severely injured and was living out what she wanted to be real. Then her father gasped, and she saw Shiro run forward to embrace Matt, and she felt her nails biting into her palm and the weight of her pistol in her hand, and she knew that it was finally over. She’d found her family.

     She raced forward and threw herself at her family, and their clumsy, tearful hug was the most happy she thought she could ever be, even standing in an alien prison a million miles from home. She heard the other soldiers rally everyone up to leave, trying to reinstate some order to the chaos, but they were oblivious to it, clinging to each other as if they were the only things tethering each other to the world. 

     When they finally separated, Pidge wiped the tears from her face and grinned at her family. Shiro moved closer to Matt and pulled him into a hug again, and Keith wandered his way over to Pidge nonchalantly. “That worked out better than anyone could have ever expected,” he said, and she laughed. “You have no idea,” she replied breathlessly. She still felt the total euphoria of her success and having gotten her father and brother back. They still had to get back to the castle and evade the galra, but she knew that the rebels had taken down the systems for the prison and were blocking any and all reinforcements. A minute later, they were all herded onto one of the drop ships that had descended, and shortly thereafter, they were standing in the castle. Pidge’s father was awed by the technological prowess of the Altean ship, and Pidge couldn’t help but to excitedly chatter about the extent of her knowledge of how it worked. While most of the soldiers went to debrief and celebrate the victory they had earned, Pidge and her family, including Shiro and Keith, stole away to her room. 

     When they finally all settled in, Pidge turned to Matt and stared at him for a moment.

     “How long have you been working with us? And how the hell did we never actually know about each other?” she burst out, and Matt  laughed. 

     “I’m a bit shocked too,” He admitted. “I usually worked remotely. I’ve been careful about revealing my identity since I had help from the rebels escaping the Galra. There were… a lot of reasons why they really wanted me.” He said, and she saw him glance at their father and Shiro. Sam didn’t seem to notice, still reveling in having his children back again, but Shiro did, and she saw him crumble a bit. “I knew that they had reasons to want me, and that they seemed to want me pretty badly, so I learned to be very, very careful about telling people who I was. Allura knew a bit, but since I was a prisoner and I was good at my job, I got her to trust me. When I saw the information about the prison and dad appear in the system, I told Allura that I would be coming along. You had your gear on, and I did too… The chances of this were astronomically slim, but somehow it really happened,” he said, and she wanted to cry from joy to see wonder still fill his face. No matter how much time and space separated them, he was still her brother, even after all that he had been through. 

     Their father smiled wearily at them, but it was a genuine smile. “I never thought that my children would became such strong people. But here you two are, fighting a war for the sake of hundreds of millions of beings that you didn’t even know about until recently.” He shook his head, but there was still a smile of his face. “I couldn’t be more proud of my children. Both of you have become more amazing than I ever could have imagined.” He held his arms out, and both Pidge and Matt happily moved closer to hug him. He waved at Shiro as well, who also pulled a confused Keith into the embrace.

     This was an end, in some ways. Pidge knew that it was the end of her intention, of her first motivation that drove her into a situation she never could have imagined. In other ways, however, it was just a beginning. If she knew anything about the ragtag family that they had built up around themselves, it was that none of them could stop fighting the war they stumbled upon. 

     It was the end of a search, an end to the worry that festered in her heart, and an end to desperation. It was the beginning of something great, a force to be reckoned with, and the beginning of a new journey that would only end when peace reigned once more.


End file.
